h m ® 














rji; 
































JM| Ml 










•Mti 




* iftH® h » n fliWi J JJ J ? 




(ir 


* ■ / 


r . , *■ 












*51 




M 


i ii' 




5f 


4» J 




i 


n 


iKw 


' 






i f. 


m 


t . § 


Vi! 

% A> 

1 * ,* 


.s i i. 




Uli 






<* x k ■ b ; » ! f, 




i*\\r 




:: 

Y J > ,. f i < ■ ■ A 0 }lt ■ \ i f * # < f /. 

iv!/u T iviy * 






ir* 






H >*• 


» ,V' 

Wu 




iflfi 

rt i *■- 




i&Si 

jtii 


fjw. 




4 1 


.< 




3i 




r |i) | 


1 1 < 




5 bSH 




•> < . •• 






< j'i j h 










it 


» l I 








J* 'TV 


41 




f If, 








i 1 


< m '. c 


R ‘f 


J If 


7?J* 


ilji 

ii-* t 

< ft i K 
















*. *, 




n}(/v 


<14 


1 \ i 




<, • t 


aU 


1 V S* 1 
4atif 


w ? 4 


* > * .>♦ ^ 


/ \ 


#14 






If ' o 


<74 


A 14 ll 


4 ml 


i W .it 






IKS 










I. i 


A 11 


>4 3 v 






t. 5 


f j f ; 

1< i ^ 




« j/* '7 i 




' 


I 4 












iff 


u 




s 1 1 


/cl 


•-1*14 li?t 


,1* 


/ 1 < 

*' ) tfvai 


x i 


umu 

'*134 >1? A 


■JId 


< .* 


• i » 


hi 




r : « 


<t v 


4 \ 






m* 




A 


1 4il 








IT? 


-if 






y , 


• m j * i € 


343' 




* .♦• 


J4.J 

\ j ■. 




I ii t 


1 v V 




Vi \ 






4 . 4 


tj 


K : c 






fils if 

if 3^}*- 






1K^ 






* 


*y< 

a I 


seif 


pn 

y 


« 1% 


*1 A' V * 

‘ • ' ' 


u 




< Ib) 


iii 








i 




ilifi 






< " < 




1 7 


h l 


Jif, 

: V 


1 




I«r 

II 


fit 






, J f k J'V ' > t? * ' 1 » v . ‘ 

' 1 r . * ( ( l « * - - i ; - | 


^ ' < ;• . |l ' , II 

\ ** ‘ 


.’k^L; >. hVi »/ ii • l.f u ■ J i »t 


r * » £ • • t i . r ■ . v ( 1 1 ■ • v ■ V • 


























r O ^ 

o > ^ ^ * 

* * *<• C> AV * ^ 




* I *1 





* * 5 ' A' V 

/ yJAL*. % 



* & % • 



^ ^ ' ^ rtf 



4 © 

_ lluxxx ^ o ^ 

^ ^ ^O * 

® " \v 

-. '+«** A: \/ : 

* rtf> ^rw 

* ^V 5 < “o> • 

* *r ^ V«(nv 

5 A* ^ 

/• V» C# -r w- • 1 1 * + *P 

o V^ • ^ o v ? ^ ^ • 

r\ ^ 'vk* *^IyVVn»* *» fcA O ^rs/flUJP . r\ ^ 

0 V'*r^\/ % '-.vi*- ,.. -*.-• 

A . ''a 4% f * # °|> C\ <0 % 5 . J>m~S 4' ^ 

****** vSK' ^ A * ^ 

^ : ™* l W9. : ^''\ _ 

**?7»* ,<v <* '...* -.6 

p c oJJJ* ♦ ^ t * 1 ^* ^ JCr # °J s iJ®% c?^ 






> i° *+. » 

•* 0° ^ *. 


0 . * i < 1 * aP <?> 

# t 0 AV . • t . ^ 

1 • c* av . * L/w'^ / 



*«V A 0 , * 

1 *U* * J 



° <» 0 <£ * 

l V « 

° o 

* <$A V' 

* O' -> 

• »• * » „ *b 

^ * &tll//Z*> T 




V* ^ * # » 0 5 / ^ 41 * » *• * <f> * 0 * 0 0 

v v *b «<y s * • • ^^, v> ^ 






«■ 


... '».»* , 0 V V * 

<P A or 0 0 " 0 <* C 5 

v*0^ 


a ^ 0 : 

,.» V' <X -'O.A* «6 V VP, 

^ ^ o 0 

bv^ ^ : •a^hv*- ^ 

# ,4 0 , V 


H ° .V ^ 




O . ^tii* ^0 


’ ♦ y# *^ c\ <0 

♦tcCxssA , 0 O ♦ 

• A V <^ o 

* »y ^ * # 

<* " 




4^ ^ _ 

* "> V % . 

& .4* * 

: v-s v • 


* # i 


O » » 


- 

4 0 ^ * 


• / « 









e / 1 




♦ A A, * 

pv-' c{a ^ • <ir o 

A 0 V *o*o’ o * 

jy s s v** ^ v % * * • ^ 

^ « V. aV * jA^fAiP %❖ 

: W * sM-Wi °. °^<b 

<biP, 



* ^ °^>. 


o N o 


' * * 5 4 <£> ^ *0.1* ^ 

* O 4 v # l ^ . AV 0 N Q 

* o *1^ t _ /v<lo * /*v 0 * 



^ ' . . s * /\ 

O • «• ' » 

' ^ / / 
■*b^ ' 


> A? * 7 ^. 

r ^ ._ 0 -HL * ' 

«J* " # 1 . $* ~ © N C 




•* </ ^ 

* ~vA r cr gv: m * ’o 

r . -^U\\\NN> % # K^ ^ ^ ^ 

^ ^ o Q .^Pf* ^ 0 0 ^ ** 

o> $ • • » A * v 

kV S*yw% ^ 


<t 

A v ... %~ *“'' J? 

% < 
VV 

* (.‘p vP 

* ^ 

<A '*•** <0- V ♦/T7J'*’ iA <\ '*••?*' -6 1 

i *v, ’V f p* .*j^ %\ .,-j^ .»*_ i j^». %. ^ 

•^u.rX o'»s^»?k-* **_ . -» •■jsmsfi s ^\ -v r ,A 



. *° ■% »'. 

/ n 0 <£. ^Ky^ 3 ” « -o.f 

^ i$> * o H o 0 * 

v -av*-. ** v »;&&' *♦ «, v >:i*i;- \ 

.c,^ -xssr-ws^- 

’ • 

* ***■ — — — <y ^ *✓ v- # 


^ g +<ir^* a 


t * a 































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Two Children in the Woods 













* 

























9 


% 

































1 



m w a s *•: 

JK - WEyiyl 


f-T2. § 

flk ’ ’ ' 









Km ->V ■ 

» .^-' JB \ 



PISH, v^< ' 

K2v |* } . 


“ HE PUT ONE LEG OVER THE SIDE 





urn (Hftlirat 
ttt tty? Hxmba 


% 

ROSALIND RICHARDS 

*» 


SflLuBtratfd hg 

EDITH FRANCIS FOSTER 



BOSTON 

Sana Ustes & (Enmpattg 

PUBLISHERS 



LUrtAHYef 00 NGKESs7 

Two Codes Received 

SEP 12 190* 



Copyright , igof 

By Dana Estes & Company 
All rights reserved 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 



COLONIAL PRESS 

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds &• Co, 
Boston , U, S. A. 


TO 

H. R. 

AND TO 

E. J. F. 
E. M. F. 
S. F. 


v 




Contents 


PART I— THE RAGGED MINE 


CHAPTER 



PAGE 

I. 

Going Away from Home . 

. 

. 13 

n. 

The Boy Next Door . 

. 

. 20 

hi. 

The Ragged Mine 

. 

. 27 


PART II — THE WOODS 


IV. 

The Journey 

• 

• 

• 

49 

V. 

The Water Journey. 

• 

• 

• 

61 

VI. 

The Camp . 

• 

• 

• 

71 

VII. 

In My Tent at Night 


• 

• 

82 

VIII. 

The First Day in Camp 

• 

• 

• 

88 

IX. 

James Comes 

• 

• 

• 

99 

X. 

Trout Fishing . 

• 

• 

• 

118 

XI. 

Jerry’s Theory . 

• 

• 

• 

134 

XII. 

Bogs, and Bears 

• 

• 


148 

XIII. 

Maggie’s Theory 

• 

• 


165 

XIV. 

The Fairy Lady 

• 

• 


172 

XV. 

The Storm . 

• 

• 


182 

XVI. 

The Other Campers . 


• 


198 

XVII. 

The Little Sister in Camp 



204 

XVIII. 

The Duck Pond Trail 
Pond 

AND 

Duck 

213 


VII 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XIX. 

The Bull Moose 

• 

• 

PAGE 

. 230 

XX. 

The Far - away Pond 

• 

• 

. 238 

XXI. 

The Bears Again 

• 

• 

. 249 

XXII. 

The Happy End . 

• 

• 

. 260 


Postscript . 

• 

• 

. 273 


Vlll 


List of Illustrations 


“ He put one leg over the side ” ( See page 29 ) 

Frontispiece 

“‘Missy!* he said, ‘and come and call on 

Jeremiah’s doughnuts ! ”* ... 79 

“ * Please put me down, sir ! ’” . . . 102 

“ ‘ Go on, you great big black pig I * ** . . 160 

“ She was sitting on the moss, . . . drawing 

A TINY FLOWER ” 175 

“■ < Oh help ! ’ the Fairy Lady said. “ Please 

help!” 188 

“We stood on the little beach” . . . 227 

“ He fell in with a most tremendous splash ” 244 


\ 


PART I 


THE BAGGED MINE 







Two Children in the 
Woods 


CHAPTER I 

GOING AWAY FROM HOME 

I was going away from home for a 
long visit. Perhaps this sounds like a 
delightful thing to do, and it was, as it 
turned out, nicer than I can ever possibly 
say, but I am sure there are other children 
who will know how very miserable I was 
before I started. 

Billy and I have never had any one to 
play with but each other, and Mamma and 
Papa. There is no town at home, only 
the woods and our house, besides Papa’s 
great mills and the mill-village, and it 
13 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


seems as if this made everything more 
precious and delightful, and made us 
besides more busy. There are the flowers 
and the dear dogs to see to, and we have 
lessons with Mother, and whenever he 
can get off, long walks with Papa. Then 
there is the rocky pasture and the woods 
to climb and scramble in, and sometimes 
we are allowed to go to the mills and get 
sawdust from the enormous sawdust heaps 
to play with and delightful smooth pieces 
of wood of different shapes; and there 
are the pigeons, and our aquarium, and 
fish are more affectionate than people 
think. I did not see at first how I could 
bear to leave the things at home, but if I 
had not gone away we should never have 
known Mr. Charles or James, and per- 
haps I should never, or not until I was 
actually grown up, have gone to the 
Great Woods. 

The first visit, to Mrs. Carey’s, was as 
different as possible from the trip to the 
14 


GOING AWAY FROM HOME 


woods, being in the city. It was besides 
much shorter, but it was there I first saw 
Mr. Charles, and James. It was when 
dear Mother first was ill. We did not 
know of course that she was really ill, or 
that Papa was worried, so imagine how 
we felt when it was decided that Papa 
must take her South for a change and 
that we were to go away, I to Mrs. Carey’s, 
who is Mother’s godmother, and Billy to 
Aunt Eleanor’s. 

In some ways, though not in many, it 
would be nice to be a boy. They do say 
so easily what they really think, and never 
— or very seldom — worry afterwards 
about its having perhaps been impolite or 
greedy. It was at breakfast time that 
Papa explained these plans to us. I had 
to keep looking at my plate, so that he 
should not see that my eyes were full of 
tears ; my throat felt sore and tight with 
trying to speak cheerfully, but Billy, when 
Aunt Eleanor asked whether he would not 
15 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


like to make a good long visit to her and 
Uncle Eustace at Fort Meredith, only 
said “ No, thank you,” most politely, 
and went on calmly eating up his por- 
ridge. 

Aunt Eleanor is a queer person to be 
Papa’s only sister. She never stays with 
us for more than a few days at a time, 
being busy with dinner-parties and that 
sort of thing in New York. She is very 
fashionable and what I think you would 
call conventional; she never in the least 
approves of me, and when she looks at 
me through her lorgnette I always feel as 
if my hair might not be tidy nor my nails 
quite right; but she loves Papa, who 
laughs at her a great deal, and Billy, and 
always laughs with them; and I think 
that she adores, and is a little frightened 
of, dear Mother. 

When Billy said this, which he did 
most funnily and calmly, Aunt Eleanor 
laughed, and said that she would not for 
16 


GOING AWAY FROM HOME 


the world interfere with his plans, and 
persuaded Papa to send him to stay on 
the farm with Mrs. Tibbets, who was our 
nurse when we were little; but it was 
still thought best for me to go to Mrs. 
Carey’s. 

At first I did not see how I could bear 
to be four whole weeks away from home. 
Mrs. Carey lives in Boston, in a great big 
house on a street corner. It would be a 
delightful place to play at being princess 
in, having great rooms with old heavy 
hangings and thick rugs, besides many 
gilded mirrors, and there is a kind of rich 
dim look to everything. You cannot very 
well play princess by yourself, though, 
and besides I cannot think how any one 
ever thought of building houses in such a 
stupid way, exactly alike, like slices, down 
the street, and all hard brick or stone. 
Aunt Eleanor said it was a great privilege 
to stay there, and that I must make the 
most of it, but Papa only said he knew I 
17 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


would try to be a good cheerful girl, for 
Mother’s sake. I did try, and wrote 
every day to him and to dear Mother and 
to Billy. 

Mrs. Carey was very kind and gentle 
to me. After luncheon, and at afternoon 
tea, she sat working at some wonderful 
fine lace-work, and told me about Mamma 
when she was a little girl, while I sat oppo- 
site her in a high chair and did my sam- 
pler, which I was ashamed of, for I am big 
enough to sew better than I do, and it was 
queer and knotty ; and when she went up 
to her rooms she left some big old picture- 
books for me to look at, and wound up 
the music-box. She often took me driving 
in the park, and when it did not rain, 
Marcella, who is Mrs. Carey’s maid, 
took me for a walk in the Public Garden. 
It is queer though to have to be taken 
to walk by some one else when you are 
not used to it, and besides it rained a great 
deal at that time, and I am afraid I often 
18 


GOING AWAY FROM HOME 


forgot about being cheerful, and sat look- 
ing out of the window at the street, and 
wondering what Billy was doing on the 
farm. 


19 


CHAPTER II 


THE BOY NEXT DOOR 

If I had tried harder to keep busy, and 
had invented some good game to play, I 
do not think I should ever have begun 
making faces at the little boy next door, 
which I am ashamed to say got to be 
quite a comfort. I cannot think now how 
I can have done it, because of course I 
was very much too big, being as I have 
said more than ten and a half. He was a 
good deal smaller; and one day, when I 
was in the middle of the horriblest face I 
could imagine, and he was making one 
as bad, his mother came and saw us, and 
that stopped the game. 

It was a few days after this that I first 
saw the boy in the bay-window on the 
20 


THE BOY NEXT DOOR 


other side. He was about a year older 
than I. He had scarlet stockings, and 
brown eyes twinkling with fun and live- 
liness. I was rather staring across, not 
thinking exactly about him, but only 
of what fun we could have together if 
he were Billy and we were in some place 
less horrid than a city, when he suddenly 
put up the sash and scrambled out on 
to the little balcony on which both bay- 
windows opened. He signed to me to 
put the sash up on my side, and I tried, 
and it came up quite easily, so I climbed 
out too. 

“ You know I call this jolly ! ” the boy 
said. There was a hurdy-gurdy two 
doors off and opposite a man was wash- 
ing windows. Another man had a hose 
and was washing the sidewalk, and a big 
lazy dog sat sunning himself in peace on 
his front steps. We stood and watched 
them, and different things which kept 
coming down the street. 

21 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Any one looking after you ? ” the boy 
then asked me, and when I asked him 
what he meant, he said : 

“ Any nurse, guardian, constable, or 
jailor ? ” 

I told him no, unless perhaps Mar- 
cella, and he said: 

“ You’re in luck,” and whistled. I 
asked him if he had some one, and he 
said, “ Jemima, yes.” 

I thought at first Jemima was a person, 
but it was only one of the things he said 
instead of “ Gracious ! ” I asked him if 
he lived here, and he said no, that he was 
only making a visit to his Aunt Louisa, 
“ For two solid months, worse luck.” 

I asked him where did he live, and he 
said in no particular place, that he lived 
with his father, who was a geologist and 
engineer, and rather famous, and that 
they had stayed in places all about the 
world, and sometimes in wild mining 
camps and frontier stations. 

22 


THE BOY NEXT DOOR 


“ You wouldn’t think it,” he said, 
“ but I’ve been in Korea ; and now I 
wear gloves and have a nurse.” 

You cannot imagine anything more 
scornful than the way he said this. 

He sat on the edge of the balcony and 
dangled his scarlet legs, and I told him 
about Billy, and the dear dogs, and the 
pigeons. 

“ I say,” he said, when it was nearly 
lunch time, “ We can talk across in deaf 
and dumb letters. I can talk them as far 
as X. I’ll teach you — ” and then he 
said, “ Hi ! Ginger ! ” and hopped back 
on to the balcony and in at the window 
with one jump, and I could hear a French 
kind of voice saying, “ Monsieur Gems, I 
defend you to do zat some more ! ” 

We did talk in deaf and dumb language 
whenever, as James said, — his name was 
James, — “ they ” were not after him. 
It made no difference knowing only as 
far as X, for, as he explained, KS, I, and 
23 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


S can be put in the place of X, Y, and Z, 
and give a kind of foreign look besides. 
We did not see much of each other at 
first, because of his nurse. She was 
French. James’s name for her was 
Gorgonzola, which he says is really a 
very strong kind of cheese, but her real 
name was Therese. She was very strict 
about his playing with strange children, 
and we never looked out when she was 
near the window. 

“ Of course I could run her from here 
to Bunker Hill,” James said, “ but I gave 
my word to Father to behave.” 

And he did always mind her when they 
were in the street, and wore his gloves 
(though sometimes inside out, which she 
could not bear), but when she was un- 
reasonable in the house he would only 
obey what his aunt told him. 

Afterwards though we were allowed 
to play with each other as much as we 
liked, from his Aunt Louisa turning out 
24 


THE BOY NEXT DOOR 


to be the rather thin, tightly-dressed lady 
who often came to call on Mrs. Carey. 
We usually played in James’s house, 
from not wanting to disturb Mrs. Carey, 
who I am afraid never knew about all 
the different things we played. I thought 
I ought to tell her, but she is a little deaf, 
and so is Marcella, and some of our games 
sounded queer when you tried to explain 
them; and when she patted my hand, 
and said she could always trust Mother’s 
daughter, I often felt a little guilty, par- 
ticularly about the candle-grease. 

It was my game at first. You drew 
cold water in the bath-tub and held a 
lighted candle over it, and the wax 
dropped and spread out into pretty little 
cups, like flowers. I also moulded things, 
cups and saucers, from melting candles, 
and I wished I had as clever fingers as my 
cousin Kitty, who once came to stay with 
us, and made a whole dinner set for 
her dolls from the blue and white candles 
25 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


in the dining-room. (Mamma said that 
the dishes were beautifully made, but that 
we ought to have asked her first about the 
candles.) James changed the game a 
little, and we made candle-grease balls 
instead, like marbles, and dropped them 
from the landing above into the big hang- 
ing lantern in the hall, which never is 
lighted. We got it over half-full, and I 
wonder if any one will ever find them. 

James had another game, which was 
to drop shoes and rubbers and some- 
times oranges from the top landing down 
all the four stories, because it annoyed 
Therese so frightfully; but I thought it 
was hard for Maggie, who is the house- 
maid, and James said that that was quite 
true, and we gave it up. 


26 


CHAPTER III 


THE RAGGED MINE 

These were indoor games though, 
which we played in rainy weather, and 
we stopped them as soon as we got inter- 
ested in the Ragged Mine. Of course it 
was not a real mine, which could not very 
well happen in a city, but a great hole 
which the workmen were digging in 
James’s Aunt Louisa’s back yard, some- 
thing about the water works. 

We began to get interested in it when 
she — James’s Aunt Louisa — forbade 
our playing Rocky Mountains along the 
back-yard fences. I suppose it was not 
a very good plan, being in the city, but it 
was the only climbing I had had since I 
came away from home, and besides, 
'27 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


James was so funny. Therese forbade 
our climbing fences at once, but James 
would not stop until his aunt forbade it 
too. He was of course quite out of 
Therese’s reach on the fence, and she 
cannot bear him to talk to her in strange 
languages, of which he knows a good 
many; so when she scolded and stormed 
at him, and said “ Mais c’est affreux, ces 
jeux-la ! ” he dangled his scarlet legs and 
called her a “ Lilien-schlanker Crocodil,” 
and other good names, both German and 
Italian, which he translated for me. 

When the Ragged Mine got deeper, 
with raggedy edges, and queer great pipes 
below, we stood and watched the work- 
men nearly all the morning, and when 
they were gone home to dinner we used 
to jump down and climb out again, until 
it got too deep. At last it went down so 
far that not even the workmen’s heads 
stuck out, and then we heard them say- 
ing that they would have to dig into the 
28 


THE RAGGED MINE 


house next door. That was tremendously 
exciting, though nothing to what hap- 
pened afterwards. We watched them 
breaking into the brick walls with picks, 
and heard the ring and tumble of the 
bricks, and at last there was a black hole 
leading into the other people’s cellar. 
We watched and watched it, and imag- 
ined different things there were inside. 
Once we saw through the hole the apron 
of a person who had come into the cellar 
to get something, and once a candle 
lighted up the darkness for a minute. 

One day when the men had gone home 
to dinner we stood watching, and the 
black hole looked more interesting than 
anything you ever saw. James looked 
carefully to see if Therese might not be 
watching, and then said it was a chance 
we mightn’t have again in all our lives, 
and put one leg over the side. He 
jumped, and I hung and dropped; and 
then I said : 


29 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Oh James, we never can get back 
again.” 

He thought we could, by standing a 
piece of pipe on end. “ And even if we 
can’t, the workmen will be back in an 
hour, and they will jump us out. That 
will be rather bad, for then we shall be 
late to dinner, and Therese will find out, 
and Aunt Louisa will forbid us playing 
here any more, but we can’t help it 
now.” 

It was the blackest darkness that I ever 
saw inside, and cold, with a damp, earthy 
smell. I felt like ten Guy Fawkeses 
rolled into one, and said “ Oh ! ” quite 
suddenly, when James, who was feeling 
for a door, found me instead. He found 
a door in a few minutes and we went up 
some dark stairs, and found ourselves in a 
passageway beside the furnace. Beyond 
us was another door, leading up another 
flight of stairs, but between us and it was 
the servants’ dining-room, with the door 
30 


THE RAGGED MINE 


wide open, and all the servants sitting at 
their dinner. James said : 

44 Of course we could make a rush and 
get past them, but we might want to come 
again, and besides we are not doing any- 
thing that we are ashamed of.” So he 
went forward, and in the very polite way 
he has of speaking, said: 

44 We have come from Mrs. Mixter’s, 
which is next door, and we are going up- 
stairs,” which I think was a brave thing 
to do. I am not afraid of swimming be- 
yond my depth, and once when a big boy 
knocked Billy down I am ashamed to say 
that I climbed up the boy’s back and bit 
him, which was a thing no lady ought to 
have done, but of speaking to strange 
people I am dreadfully afraid. They 
stopped eating and stared at us, and the 
very fat one, that we found out afterwards 
was the cook, dropped her knife and fork 
with a rattle on her plate. 

We went up-stairs. No one spoke to 
31 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


us, and no cross voice called suddenly 
down to know what we were doing, which 
I was a little afraid of. The door beyond 
the china closet was shut, so we did not 
look in, but the next door was open, and 
it was the most interesting room you can 
imagine, as the things in it were so differ- 
ent from what we were used to. There 
was a row of oars, hung up against the 
wall, some with letters painted on them, 
and on the mantelpiece a row of silver 
cups, covered with letters too. There 
were a great many queer iron tools, and 
more boots than you would think that any 
one ever could wear, and guns. We ex- 
amined these interesting things a little, 
but we had not much time, so we went 
on up the big stairs to the next flight. 

A door stood a little way open, with 
blue smoke, of cigarettes, James said, 
coming out of it. We stood still a minute, 
and I am ashamed to say my heart began 
to thump, and then we knocked, and 
32 


THE RAGGED MINE 


some one said “ No, Hannah, I sha’n’t 
want any lunch to-day.” We knocked 
again, and then went in. It was a big 
room, all leather, with a bright fire burn- 
ing. There were crutches leaning against 
the wall, and on a low leather sofa lay a 
tall young man. He was reading. He 
had broad shoulders, but was very, very 
thin. He had rumpled-up dark hair and 
long white hands. He looked up as we 
came in, with softly bright dark eyes, 
which looked surprised and amused, and 
very, very tired, all together. Then he 
put down his book, and took his cigarette 
from his lips and stared at us. 

James made a little bow, and ex- 
plained how we had come, only he 
got a little mixed up and just said that 
we had happened to come up from the 
cellar. 

The young man lay still staring at us, 
quite quietly, and not as if he were sur- 
prised at all. After awhile he said : 

33 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Who might you happen to be ? ” and 
James said, “ James Auchinbreck and 
Flora Maxwell ; ” and he said, “ Hout 
mon ! ” very softly, which James says is 
Scotch, as of course our names are. He 
asked us if we preferred cellars generally, 
and James explained to him where we 
lived, and told him about the hole be- 
tween the two houses, and that if we were 
dirty that was the reason, and asked did 
we disturb him. 

He said 44 Not at all ! ” and asked us 
very politely to sit down, which we did, in 
the two big leather armchairs by the fire. 

I don’t believe anybody ever had a 
nicer call. He was very much interested 
in the Ragged Mine, when James ex- 
plained about it, and said he would like 
to come down and climb through it too, 
“ if it wasn’t for his timber leg.” I got en- 
tirely over being shy, and we talked about 
the things at home, and it seemed only a 
minute when a clock struck quarter to 
34 


THE RAGGED MINE 


one, with a set of pretty soft bells. James 
stood up quickly, and shook hands, and 
said: 

“ I am very sorry, but we have to scoot, 
or Therese will know.” He asked us to 
come again the next day, and we said we 
would. 

It was a narrow thing. Fortunately a 
pretty tall piece of pipe was standing 
against the side of the hole. I got from 
that to James’s shoulder, and so out, and 
then I pulled as hard as I could, and 
James scrambled and tumbled up on top 
of me. 

“ Ginger ! ” he said, rubbing the clay 
off on his trousers, for there really 
wasn’t any other place to rub his 
hands. 

“ Never mind, Flora, it was worth it, 
even if we are put on bread and water for 
a month.” 

Then we flew , and I was in time to get 
a little clean, and smooth my hair, but 
35 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


James said afterwards that Therese had 
to send him up-stairs three times to scrub 
his finger-nails. 

We went the next day, and the next 
and next and next. It was the best time 
I ever had in all my life. The way got to 
be quite natural to us, and the workmen 
jumped us in and out of the hole. The 
third day Hannah, who is the housemaid 
at the house next door, thanked us for 
coming, and cried, and said it was the 
first thing that had brought the light into 
her Mr. Charles’s face this weary year; 
and after this the cook nearly always had 
gingerbread for us, or little tarts or 
cookies, and we told Mr. Charles, and 
used to bring them up into his room and 
have feasts. 

We called him Mr. Charles, too. You 
felt right off as if you had known him all 
your life. We played games, and some- 
times he read aloud to us from ballads 
and splendid things about fighting. Some- 
36 


THE RAGGED MINE 

times we read to him, but mostly we talked 
and talked, about every kind of thing you 
can imagine, and then we had discussions 
about things we either liked or did not 
like. For instance, Mr. Charles does not 
like cats, nor playing with starfish and 
jellyfish at the seashore. I do not like 
cities, or going to places where you have 
to talk to grown-up people, or wading 
in bogs, or wet things like snails or polly- 
wogs (at least I did not then), while James 
can see no sense nor pleasure in anything 
to do with dolls. And as Mr. Charles 
said, we all “ enlarged each other’s points 
of view materially on these and kindred 
topics.” Then he got James to bring up 
things from the room down-stairs, rowing 
cups and microscopes, and horns of deer, 
and explained to us about them. I was 
thinking how splendid to know how to do 
so many things, and very stupidly, for I 
might have known from the way Hannah 
shook her head and sighed, I asked him 
37 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


how soon he would be quite well and go 
hunting again. 

He was silent a little while, and then 
said quite gently that he should not hunt 
again ; that he had been hurt in an acci- 
dent, and should not walk again except 
on crutches. James’s eyes filled right up 
with tears, and he could not bear it that he 
had talked so much about all the things 
he used to be able to do, but Mr. Charles 
said he did not mind in the least, and 
laughed his soft amused laugh, and said 
that it gave him a chance of showing off 
to some one. 

You would think that all this time 
Therese would have found us out, but it 
was while she was at supper that we went 
to see Mr. Charles, and Mary Donnelly, 
who is the cook, and knew about it, would 
never tell. Therese did find out at last 
though, and told James’s Aunt Louisa, 
and we were forbidden ever to go through 
the Ragged Mine again. Mrs. Mixter 
38 


THE RAGGED MINE 


was very angry about it. She said 
she was surprised at us, and that we had 
been gossiping with other people’s serv- 
ants and with Irish workmen, and that 
she should speak to Mrs. Carey about me ; 
and when we tried to tell her about Mr. 
Charles, and that it was to see him that 
we climbed into the other house, she said 
she did not care to hear any more dis- 
cussion, and that we were to leave the 
room. 

James was white with angriness, but 
the next morning he was at the window 
as soon as I came down, and signed to me 
to come right over. His Aunt Louisa had 
a letter, which she handed to us, and 
asked very stiffly if we could explain it. 
The note said : 

“ Dear Cousin Louisa : — This is not 
to rake up old scores, but to ask you to 
let the children come over as they have 
been coming. They are better than a 
39 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


string of doctors, and I think you will not 
refuse. 

“ Yours, 

“ C. Wainwright.” 

He really was her cousin all the time, 
only they had quarrelled about some 
money which had been left to Mr. Charles, 
and which James’s Aunt Louisa thought 
she ought to have had. 

Mrs. Carey was so pleased when she 
heard of our going to see him that she 
cried, and kissed my cheek. She told me 
all about the accident. He was captain 
of the crew in his last year in college, and 
after the race, which his boat won glo- 
riously, some of them went for a drive, 
and the horses got frightened. Mr. 
Charles was driving, but another person 
caught the reins, and they were upset, 
and Mr. Charles was so badly crippled 
that he was told he could never walk 
without crutches, or at any rate without 
40 


THE RAGGED MINE 


limping badly. Mrs. Carey said he was 
perfectly brave about it, and as soon as 
he was well enough went right into his 
work, which was seeing about forests and 
streams, and looking after lumber dis- 
tricts in the woods, a little like Papa. 
But after that something else happened, 
something which made him very un- 
happy. 

“ He threw up his work,” Mrs. Carey 
said, “ and for a whole year now he has 
shut himself up in that great gloomy 
house of his grandfather’s and seen no 
one. I went at first to see him, but he 
wrote me a sad little note, thanking me, 
but saying he knew I would understand 
if at first it was easier to straighten things 
out alone. I send him flowers from time 
to time, and he thanks me, and says they 
are like his mother’s garden.” She said, 
“ Poor lad, poor Charles ! ” and “ To 
think of that brilliant promise fretting 
itself away in suffering and bitterness.” 
41 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

One time after this when we were sit- 
ting with Mr. Charles (we went in by the 
front door now, for the Ragged Mine was 
finished and stopped up), we began 
talking, James and I, I mean, about what 
we were going to do when we were grown 
up, and after that this was what we 
talked about every time and it was the 
most interesting thing. James said he 
was going to be a naval engineer, and 
build harbors and lighthouses, and Mr. 
Charles said he couldn’t have chosen 
better, and shook hands with him, his 
long white hand and James’s brown one. 
I did not tell him about having wanted 
to be a circus dancer, for I really do not 
care about that any more, and besides, 
as Billy has decided to be an architect, 
I shall not have time for much besides 
keeping house for him ; and Mr. Charles 
shook hands with me too. He laughed, 
his quiet kind of laugh, and said he hadn’t 
made up his mind what he was going to 
42 


THE RAGGED MINE 


do when he grew up, himself, but he was 
thinking about it. 

We went over, as I have said, nearly 
every morning, when suddenly, before I 
could believe it, Papa wrote that he was 
coming back with Mother, who was doing 
nicely, but still was not quite so well and 
strong as he wanted to have her, and that 
he would come through Boston and pick 
me up on the way home. I was at Mr. 
Charles’s when the letter came, and after 
he had said how splendid it was that 
Mother was so much better, and we had 
talked about the new stall which Billy and 
I had been planning to build at home for 
the new goat, he drew me down beside 
him on the sofa and held me to him for 
a minute quietly, with my cheek against 
his. Then he said that he should write 
every little while, and that we must, and 
we promised joyfully, for we never im- 
agined such a thing as his caring to write 
us. For James had to say good-by too 
43 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


on the same day. He was going away 
with his father on a geologizing expedition 
far north into Canada. 

I felt' a sudden great loneliness as we 
went down the steps, and I know James 
felt it too, for when we got to my steps 
he said, “ Let’s come out for a minute on 
the balcony,” and he stood with his hands 
in his pockets whistling and kicking 
softly at the railing, before he said, “ He 
surely is a corker.” 

Then he arranged about collecting 
butterflies for me and Billy. Of course 
he could not send them by mail, but he 
planned to keep them in collecting-boxes, 
and bring them himself as soon as he 
came back; and as he did not have a 
great many kinds we have at home, hav- 
ing, as he said, “ wasted long years in 
foreign parts,” we arranged that I should 
collect for him too. 

Some one called, “ James, my man, 
our train will not be apt to wait ! ” and I 
44 


THE RAGGED MINE 


caught a glimpse of a tall gentleman 
at the window of Mrs. Mixter’s house. 
James said, 44 Hi, Ginger ! ” and waved 
his hand, and hopped inside the window 
as his father raised the sash. I waved 
again and so did he, and called out 44 Care 
of Messrs. Agnew & Co., Winnipeg, 
Manitoba/’ which was to be his address. 
We both forgot to say good-by, but James 
is not the kind of person you can somehow 
imagine saying it to, for you feel as if you 
must be going to see him all your life. 


45 




































































































PART II 


THE WOODS 


J 

























CHAPTER IV 


THE JOURNEY 

I think the different things that 
happen are a good deal like a kaleido- 
scope. You look through it at a lovely 
pattern and get used to the crimson being 
in one place and the blue in another ; and 
then it all flies apart and then together 
again, and it is perfectly different, and 
perfectly delightful too ; only one pattern 
is the loveliest of all, and you can always 
turn to that again. 

Papa and Mamma went straight 
through without coming to Boston after 
all, and Maggie was sent on all 
the way to take me home. I rather 
hoped it might have been Miss Bur- 
nett, who is so kind and gentle, 
49 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


but Maggie wanted to see her sister in 
Chelsea at the same time, so of course she 
came. Maggie has been with us for 
nineteen years, ever since Mamma was a 
little girl herself, and it is no use ever 
hoping that she will be different, or less 
strict about the way a young lady ought 
to behave. 

The journey going home went on till 
long, long after it was dark on the third 
day from Boston. I like to travel at night. 
It is quite different. The train shakes 
and shakes, but comfortably. It is all 
bright cheerful yellow light inside, and 
outside a sort of rushing darkness going 
past, and you can shut your eyes and 
then not feel sure which way it is rushing. 

Maggie is a great deal stricter about 
girls than boys. When I tell her so she 
only says, 

“ A boy knows what he is doing.” I 
think I know, too. 

She has two nephews who work in the 

50 


THE JOURNEY 


mill at home, and says she would never 
know what to do if she had had a niece. 
I should really think though that she 
would prefer one, for they, her nephews, 
are both very lazy, which a girl I think 
does not have much chance of being. 

Maggie was dreadfully uninteresting 
all the way, and would not let me wipe 
the mist off the window with my hand, or 
even with my sleeve, and then would not 
imagine anything at all about the different 
things we might be passing in the dark. 

The train shook and shook, and I won- 
dered if James’s train was shaking in the 
same way, and if he was sitting up still 
with his father and what they were talk- 
ing about. He was going for three whole 
nights in the train. I felt as if I were still 
seeing him and Mr. Charles, and when 
a light flared at us out of the darkness, 
I imagined that it was Mr. Charles’s fire, 
and that Hannah was just going to bring 
in tea. Then I imagined that it was a 
51 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


ship’s light, and that we were all on board, 
and all the time the train kept on shaking 
more and more steadily and comfortably 
till I was fast asleep. 

I slept like an Enchanted Princess. I 
did not feel our stopping, or getting out 
of the train, or getting into the carriage, 
but fell against Maggie’s shoulder and 
went sound asleep again. Imagine sleep- 
ing for the whole drive to the Mills ! 

That was how I never knew that there 
was no Papa at the station to meet us, 
and that one of the kaleidoscope things 
had happened again ; Papa had had to go 
to look up one of the new lumber districts, 
far, far off, a long journey into the woods, 
and had taken Mamma with him to finish 
her rest there, and I was to come on to 
join them the very next morning with 
Maggie, and Billy was to come as soon as 
he got over mumps, which he was having 
out at Mrs. Tibbetts’s farm ! 

Actually into the far, far woods, to go 
52 


THE JOURNEY 


and camp out ! And Billy would come 
soon. But Maggie was extremely put 
about. 

“ Dear sakes and sirs ! ” she kept saying 
over and over to kind Miss Burnett, and 
all the time packing and unpacking, both 
together and both dreadfully decidedly. 

She took me right up-stairs and put me 
to bed. I fell asleep while she was un- 
dressing me, and again the minute she 
had left me in bed, but soon she came 
back, still very short and decided, but 
bringing me a surprise, a plate of nice hot 
scrambled eggs and a cup of cocoa. This 
partly waked me up, and while Maggie 
was gone in the other room I began 
a letter to Billy with a scrap of pencil 
which I found in my pocket. It was 
pretty hard to be having mumps instead 
of going to Camp, even if the Tibbetts 
children were all having them too. 
Maggie came back before I had finished 
though, and took away my pencil. 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Miss Flora, child,” she said, “ What 
will he want with letters, and his face the 
size of two eggs ! ” 

We had breakfast in the early morning, 
almost before dawn, and Maggie let me 
have a cup of hot coffee. This time it was 
poor Maggie who was sleepy, and I felt 
wide awake. I do love the very early 
morning. The air is sweet and cool 
and fresh with dew, and there is a 
strange, peculiar kind of darkness, and 
if the moon and stars are still out they 
look different. 

We went by the new road to the North- 
west station, instead of going to the regular 
railroad. It' is six miles longer, and 
most of it through the biggest part of the 
pines. Kind Miss Burnett came with us, 
which was extremely good of her. I said 
I wished that she was going with us, 
and I almost said to her “ instead of 
Maggie,” but she smiled and said : 

“ The cats and I will have our camping 
54 


THE JOURNEY 


out at home till you come back,” and 
kissed me for good-by. 

We were really starting out on a long, 
long journey. I felt as if it were going to 
last for weeks and weeks. It still was 
only five o’clock in the morning. The 
sun was shining across with long slanting 
shadows and there was cool fresh dew on 
everything. 

We went in the big regular train at 
first, going through miles and miles of 
heavy forest and stopping at little towns 
where there seemed to be only a sawmill 
and the station. Maggie was delighted. 
I had thought she would think very little 
of the forest, as there could be none 
of the farms and neat barns which she 
likes, but she said the smell of the 
woods in her bones did her good. She 
said that Scotland where she came from, 
was all bare lonely hills and clean 
woods, 44 not a pack of folk.” She 
dislikes cities just as much as I do. She 
55 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

thinks that very few people living in cities 
can be honest, and much fewer clean. 

We had our dinner in a great big 
lighted station, with gongs sounding and 
brakemen ringing on the wheels of the 
train. It is very interesting to have din- 
ner in a restaurant. I wanted to eat at 
the counter, where all sorts of different 
things to eat are arranged nicely in 
piles, but Maggie does not think that 
queer things are exciting in the least, and 
has dreadfully strict views about boiled 
eggs and bread and butter being the only 
proper food for growing children. 

“ Oh, Maggie ! ” I said. “ Do you see 
that little darling pie? It is a chicken 
pie. Oh do let’s have it ! ” 

“ Na,” Maggie said — Maggie gen- 
erally talks a little Scottish — “ I’d never 
trust ’em. Cats in it, I dare say. They’re 
all French or Roossians or Eyetalians, 
or some such doings, in these parts.” 
Maggie does not really think that there 
56 


THE JOURNEY 


is any difference between different kinds 
of foreigners. And she was just as firm 
about the jelly roll and a nice puffy kind 
of thing with cream inside, but I was firm 
about the buns, and had them. 

Beyond this station we went in a 
different train, the engine of which burnt 
wood instead of coal. The journey still 
was almost all through woods, but going 
higher and higher, among bigger and 
bigger wooded mountains on all sides. 
The little train whisked across sharp 
valleys which dropped away below you 
so suddenly it made you gasp, on spider- 
legged trestles that did not seem half big 
enough to hold you. I scrambled from 
one window to another, pressing my nose 
against the window-panes, and once stood 
on the back platform holding tight to the 
rail and gasping a little, with the con- 
ductor, who was the brakeman too, a 
nice man with gray curly hair, while 
Maggie took a nap ; but she woke up and 
57 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


snatched me back in short shape, and I 
think nearly boxed the nice conductor’s 
ears. 

It was dark when we came at last to the 
big lake. There was still a little yellow 
light glimmering over the water from the 
black shore, and we could just make out 
the huge dark shapes of nearer mountains, 
with forests up to their tops. 

The lake is fifty miles long, and all in 
solid forest. There was a little puffing 
steamer waiting to take us up it, and we 
went on board with only the last light 
from the yellow crescent moon low over 
the dark woods. After that there was 
only the glow from our engine, flashing 
up bright whenever the engineer opened 
the door. 

We were the only passengers. The 
engineer was a nice kind jolly man with 
sandy hair, and he showed me all about 
the engines, which ran so smoothly and 
oilily, in their patch of w T arm bright 
58 


THE JOURNEY 


light in the black darkness. Presently 
the engineer got supper, coffee and baked 
beans, on a little bench, and he and the 
captain took turns eating and steering, 
only first they brought us each a nice hot 
steaming plate, and Maggie liked hers 
as much as I did mine. 

It was entirely night now, and had 
clouded, so that you could not see the stars 
at all. It was wonderful to be going on in 
the dark with the forests close all round 
us, and the great lake, dark gray water, 
stretching out ahead. 

I wrote a letter to Billy in the light of 
the engine-room fire and then sat quietly 
in the stern with Maggie. 

Maggie is really dear to travel with, 
though she is strict. She made a nest of 
the different cloaks and wraps which we 
had brought and tucked me warmly up 
beside her in them. I put my head on her 
knee, and she took one of my hands, a 
thing she does not often do, for she says 
59 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Girls are easy sp’ilt,” and sat with her 
bonnet on one side, telling me about 
Scotland, and as it grew later, of when 
she was a little girl herself there. 


60 


CHAPTER V 

THE WATER JOURNEY 

The carry is most wonderful. It is cut 
right through the solid forest, a straight 
narrow pathway of white sand, and the 
trees are like a wall on each side of it. 
We saw it first by starlight, but then all 
that you could see was the black trees 
reaching up into the sky. 

We slept in a mill , the nicest funny 
place, just at the near end of the carry, in 
the woods. The engineer said he had 
been pleased to meet us, as if I had been 
grown up as well as Maggie, as he helped 
us down. He stood looking back at us 
as the little steamer puffed away again 
in the darkness. 


61 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Well, thanks be, it’s clean” said 
Maggie, sniffing at the smell of new wood 
as we got down from the boat. It was 
clean. It was all new cut wood, a sawmill, 
with one end fitted up into two or three 
small rooms, all bright and white and 
light. 

It was ten o’clock and after when we 
got there, but the lamp-light from the win- 
dow ran out in long yellow beams into the 
darkness and showed the fir-trees growing 
close around. The kind, round-cheeked 
wife of the sawmill-man had a second nice 
hot supper for us though it was so late. 
We had baked beans and hot biscuits, 
cheese and tea, which Maggie would have 
said would be my death at home, out of 
such nice thick shiny white china, on a 
table made of new-cut smooth-planed 
boards. 

It was all fresh wood everywhere, and 
smelled of it, especially our little closet 
bedroom, where we slept in bunks . We 
62 


THE WATER JOURNEY 


had a window with no glass, open to the 
stars, and I could see them shining as I lay 
in bed. In the morning as soon as I 
looked out, I wished that I could have slept 
in the great sawdust pile outside the win- 
dow. It has little thick dark fir-trees 
growing close around it, and you can look 
down the north bay of the Great Lake, 
which we had come up last night, long 
and narrow, with towering dark wooded 
sides ; but Maggie of course would never 
have allowed it. 

The house-mill was all in different 
stories, like little decks, and I do hope 
that sometime I can live on one just 
like it. 

Almost before light we heard calls, and 
there were the two guides, Tom and Jerry 
Mills, who had been sent to meet us. 

I cannot imagine now that I did not 
always know them. At first I liked Tom 
best, but that was because I did not know 
Jerry yet. Tom is a dear, nice, kind 
63 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


and bluff and hearty, but Jerry is a 
darling . 

At first I thought that he was a sad 
person, and a little queer. I wondered 
whether he was one of the hunters or one 
of the lumbermen in camp. He did not 
look especially like either, being tall and 
stooping with a long sandy mustache. 
I asked him what he did in camp and he 
sighed and said he played the organ, but 
more generally the flute. I thought then 
that he was very queer indeed, till I 
looked up, and he looked down at me with 
a nice, kindly twinkle. 

Afterwards he sighed again and told 
Maggie he would be frank, he was the 
camp’s chief culinary officer, and then 
seeing me looked puzzled, he patted my 
shoulder, and said that I must get used to 
his way of joking, that that meant he was 
the cook. 

“ The best cook,” he said, “ in the 
United States or Canada, and my brother 
64 


THE WATER JOURNEY 


Tom cleans knives for me, and washes up 
the dishes,” and Tom reached round and 
smacked him with a paddle. 

Then we all walked together across the 
carry. As I said, it is dark, with woods 
like a close wall. The forest goes I sup- 
pose for almost countless miles away on 
each side of it, and I could not help think- 
ing that if you only had clean bright fur, 
instead of clothes, how you could slip 
away and climb and run through it. 

At the other side of the carry, in the 
still forest river, the canoes were waiting 
for us. I felt my heart jump actually 
when I saw them. It was still very early 
morning, five o’clock, and we were to go 
all day in them through the great woods ! 

Maggie jumped too, but in a very differ- 
ent way. 

“ Save and preserve us ! ” she said, 
“ and is it go in the like of that, let 
alone this precious child ! I’ll never do 
it ! ” But when she saw how prettily and 
65 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


safely the dear canoe floated with me and 
Jerry in it,’ she got in, only turning round 
to say to Tom that it would not be worth 
his while to try to drown her, “ For I tell 
ye I can swim like any trout.” 

Our baggage, cloaks and shawls and 
rolls of wraps, was arranged so as to make 
a sort of nest of cushions for us for the 
journey ahead, and then with a quick 
swirl of paddles we set out. 

We went all day long, and all the next 
day and the next, along the still, still 
river through the forest. It did not 
change, but went on, sometimes curving 
and sometimes straight, like a water road 
leading on into the heart itself of the great 
woods. 

A muskrat on a tussock of grass, eating 
mussels very fast and going off with a 
flounce when he heard our paddles : 

A string of silly black and yellow tur- 
tles basking on a log : 

Two moose drinking: (One was at 

66 


THE WATER JOURNEY 


dusk, and we stole down close to him, a 
tall, dark, hairy, awful beast who turned 
and crashed off through the woods with a 
great snuff and snort.) 

Deer and deer, just like in Robin Hood, 
sometimes glancing through the woods or 
swimming across with their darling pretty 
heads held well above the water; and 
once a mother deer and a speckled baby 
fawn: 

These are the things we saw as we went 
past, and I am almost sure I saw a bear, 
or heard him. It was at the little cabin 
where we spent the second night. He 
snuffed long dreadful snuffs under the 
door, and I am sure I saw him in the 
shadow of a tree. Tom said it was only a 
shadow that I saw, and Jerry said so too, 
and perhaps a bear would not have stayed 
there quite so still, but I could not help 
thinking about it after the lantern was 
put out, and Maggie kept her bonnet on 
all night. 


67 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


The camp was on a lake into which 
the river opens after winding through so 
many miles of woods. It was long, long 
after dark when we reached it on the 
fourth day, in fact nearly midnight. 

We had supper on shore that evening 
in a little hollow shiny with pine-needles, 
with a fire to make the coffee with, and 
I had coffee out of a tin cup like the men, 
and Maggie let me. After supper, when 
we were back in the canoes, I began to 
grow sleepy, watching the dark woods 
slip by us quietly, and then sleepier and 
sleepier, so that I hardly knew when Tom 
arranged the blankets for me on the floor 
of the canoe, and I lay down and went 
sound, sound asleep. 

I woke up once or twice and could see 
the stars high over my head between the 
dark tree-tops, and hear the water lapping 
almost close to my cheek, and feel the canoe 
slipping along with steady, even strokes. 
About the fourth time I woke up more 
68 


THE WATER JOURNEY 


completely, for Tom had called to me. 
We were just coming out at last into the 
lake, and far down it Tom showed me the 
light of a fire like a low yellow star close 
to the water, and said that was the camp. 
Before long, as we went on, Jerry gave a 
long halloo, and so did Tom, and we heard 
a far-away answer down the lake. Then 
we saw more lights moving back and forth, 
and it seemed as if the next thing I knew 
the canoe was being run up on a little 
beach and Papa caught me out of it. 

Imagine, when you had never been in 
anything but in a house all your life ! 
There were two great fires, so bright they 
almost dazzled you, blazing through the 
trees, and lantern light coming and going 
like fire-flies. There were white tents, 
with the light flickering on them, and 
a lantern hung on a tree by every tent. 
Mamma took me in her arms, laugh- 
ing at me because I was so sleepy, 
and held me with her arms close round 
69 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


me, and talked to Maggie, who still 
had her best bonnet on one side and was 
feeling for her apron-strings, which she 
always does when she is flustered, whether 
she has any apron on or not. 

I think I really was asleep all through. 
Some one brought me something hot and 
very good in a bowl, and I thought it was 
Miss Burnett, who was of course at home. 
I heard Maggie say : 

“ The child’s perished on her feet, 
Miss Flora, after travelling the wild woods 
these two weeks past.” 

(Maggie calls Mamma and me both 
Miss Flora always.) 

The next thing I knew I was in my 
white towel wrapper and rolled up in I 
do not know how many bright red blan- 
kets, and had hardly time to wonder 
whether my soft, soft thick bed was really 
made of Christmas trees or not before I 
was asleep. 


70 


CHAPTER YI 


THE CAMP 

In the morning I felt the sweet green 
fir tips close against my cheek, and saw 
the sunlight flickering through the leaves 
on to my tent as I lay looking up at it. 
The straight stems of the trees were close 
outside, the leafy underbrush beyond, 
and through them a strip of blue lake 
dancing in the sun. 

I pressed my face in different places 
into the soft sweet fir, and ran my fingers 
deep down into it. It was like lying in a 
nest of Christmas trees. 

I did hope that Maggie had not brought 
quite as many washing things as she 
thinks suitable for a young lady, but she 
71 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


had, and came in soon with a pail of 
nearly boiling water and the collapsible 
rubber tub. Afterwards I was allowed to 
go for a swim every day in the early 
morning, but Maggie still scrubbed me 
just as thoroughly, for she said : 

“ Swimming about like a wild fish is 
not hot water, nor yet nail-brushes nor 
soap.” 

Billy, once when Maggie was washing 
him, collapsed the tub , and the soapy 
water fell all out over the nursery floor. 
I wanted Maggie to put pine-needles into 
this bath, a thing they sometimes do for 
sick people, but she only said: 

“ Na, sticky stuff,” and washed my 
hair more thoroughly. 

I shall be glad when I am able to 
shampoo my own hair. I think I could 
do it now, and then need not have so much 
soap in my eyes and down my neck, but 
I do not believe Maggie will ever trust me 
till after I am grown up and married. 

72 


THE CAMP 


The moment I was dressed and fresh 
and tidy, I slipped out. 

“ But softly, so as not to wake your Ma 
and Pa,” Maggie whispered after me. 

It was still early morning. The leaf 
mould under my feet smelt moist and 
sweet. There were little veils and wisps 
of white mist still on the lake, just lighted 
up with sun, and the soft blue showed 
through them. 

There were seven white tents in among 
the trees, four by one camp-fire, three 
farther off by the other fire for the men. 
The men were up already cooking break- 
fast and I saw the sunlight flash on 
Jerry’s bright pans. I went down very 
softly to the lake. 

It was perfectly different from seeing 
it at night. Now it was all blue and softly 
flashing diamonds. A duck was sitting 
still out on the water, tucking down his 
head to preen his feathers. The fog still 
lay in white curls all around, and where 
73 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


it rose the sunlight turned the soft curls 
into silver. 

From the tents a long narrow rocky 
point runs out into the lake, and I went 
out along this. There are not many trees 
on it, a few delightful gnarled and twisted 
Norway pines, hemlocks and cedars, and 
thick blueberry and huckleberry bushes, 
and then rock, running off bare and 
smooth into deep water, and already 
feeling quite warm in the sun. 

Beyond it is the lake, which is so long 
that the other end loses itself in a sort of 
misty gateway between two high sharp 
blue mountains. There are many differ- 
ent fairy wooded islands, and the tall 
forest comes straight down to the water 
all the way along. It is all woods. They 
stretch away as far as you can see without 
a change or break. 

It was perfectly still, and very warm 
and sunny, and a little breath of wind 
seemed to come from the shadow of the 
74 


THE CAMP 


tall woods on one side and stir across the 
lake. It seemed all bright and happy and 
alive; but as if it belonged entirely to 
itself and to the forest, as if no people 
could ever come to touch or hurt it, and 
there would never be any voice across it 
but deer and wild birds calling to each 
other. 

I climbed out to the very end rock of 
all, and was reaching down for foam cups 
which had washed in between the rocks, 
when I heard Papa call “ Breakfast ! ” in 
a nice loud roar. 

I scrambled back just as Mamma was 
coming out of her tent. She had a sprig 
of scarlet berries in her hair, and had 
on pretty fringed and beaded moccas- 
sins. The fires had fresh wood on, and 
were burning with a bright rush of sparks, 
and the air was full of the nice smell of 
hot coffee and breakfast. 

The dining-room tent had two great 
logs for benches, a funny thin board table 
75 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


running between them, and was open 
at both ends, so that you could see 
both fires. The sharp air tickled me 
and made me hungry. We had fresh 
trout, fresh that very morning, hot and 
sizzling, and nice hot baked potatoes, 
flapjacks, cocoa, and little biscuit, all out 
of pretty bright aluminum cups and 
bowls and plates. I afterwards on my 
birthday had a little aluminum knife, 
fork, and spoon, which folded into a case 
to go in my pocket. 

“ Well, Flora ! ” Papa said, when I had 
finished with a sigh, and folded my red 
napkin. 

“ Well, Papa! ” I said, and hugged 
him and he hugged me. 

Afterwards, when he had gone off with 
the men for the rest of the day, measuring 
trees along one of the trails, Mamma and 
I went and put my tent in order (Maggie 
was unpacking in her own tent with a 
great flapping and banging and shaking 
76 


\ 


THE CAMP 


out of clothes). We folded the blankets 
neatly on the green bed and then hung 
my hat and jacket and frocks up on the 
spikes of the cedar tent-posts. My tooth- 
brush hung up too, and my sponge and 
looking-glass. We arranged the smaller 
things on a shelf made of a single mon- 
strous fungus which Papa had put up for 
me. I also had two slices of a big tree, 
one for a wash-stand, the other either 
for a chair or table. . 

Afterwards Mamma went to her tent 
and in a minute came back laughing with 
her hands behind her back. 

“ Which hand ? ” she said. 

I said “ Right,” and in her right hand 
was a pair of moccassins just like her own 
for me, with pretty leather fringes and a 
bright pattern of porcupine quills worked 
on the toes. In her left hand she had a 
little scarlet sweater, and a scarlet cap with 
a white feather in it. Mamma and I both 
wear scarlet a great deal, being so dark. 

77 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ I wanted a green jacket for you,” she 
said, “ for proper fairy clothes, ‘ green 
jacket, red cap, and white owl’s feather/ 
but I had to do with this. And here is 
one thing more, which Papa meant to 
give you after breakfast.” 

Oh, what do you think it was ! A 
leather belt, carved, with a real sheath- 
knife fitting into it ! 

“ Now fly,” Mamma said, kissing me, 
“ and explore a little, while I write to 
Billy, my poorest mumpy lamb; then 
come back and we’ll be cosy by the fire. 
To-morrow, lessons, a short one every day, 
but to-day is holiday.” 

I had not thought there would be les- 
sons at all. I went first to Jerry’s cooking 
fire, to where he was prodding lovely 
round white doughnuts as they rose bub- 
bling to the top of the pan. He was 
singing a song about “ Alone in the 
grave,” but he was singing it extremely 
gaily. 


78 


« ‘ MISSY ! ’ HE SAID, ‘ AND COME AND CALL ON JEREMIAH’S 

DOUGHNUTS ! ’ ” 



^SXAAXJLA 


■ w \ 

























































































































































































THE CAMP 


“ If here isn’t Missy ! ” he said, with 
a low bow, “ and come and call on 
Jeremiah’s doughnuts ! ” 

“ What makes them rise to the top, 
Jerry ? ” I said. 

“ Well,” he said, “ they never care 
about staying at the bottom. Call it 
frivolous minded, or ambitious, I don’t 
know. Take good hard tack, ’twould 
set there all day long.” 

“ But hard tack wouldn’t make dough- 
nuts,” I objected. 

“ No more it would,” he said. 

“ What are the birds, Jerry ? ” I asked 
him afterwards. I had noticed them as 
soon as I got up in the morning, gray 
birds, smooth and sleek, and quite big, 
which flew quietly down close to the tents, 
and sat there watching us, as tame as 
doves. 

“ Meat-birds,” he said, “ Canada jays, 
to call them full and proper. The sauciest 
thieves ever was hatched out of aigs. 
79 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Steal my doughnuts right hot out of the 
pan, that feller’d like to.” 

But though they were saucy and though 
they certainly stole I loved the nice gray 
quiet soft-flying birds, and loved having 
them so close about us always. 

Jerry made me a seat of boxes piled 
together, and we had a nice talk about 
everything in camp. I told him how much 
more wonderful it was even than I had 
dreamt. 

“ It’s wonderful indeed,” straightening 
himself, and now not joking at all, “ and 
more than wonderful besides. Here you 
see things the way they really are. Get 
the sweet, clean breath of the woods once 
into your blood and it’s with you. You 
never can lose it again. It’s with you in 
an elevated train, I can’t say worse, and 
you won’t lose it, not in a smallpox 
hospital.” 

Soon Maggie came for me to come and 
mend my stockings, and Jerry pretended 
80 


THE CAMP 


that he should die of loneliness while we 
were gone. 

“ Pass right away,” he said, “ maybe 
before this batch of doughnuts is finished, 
maybe not, you never can tell,” and he 
told Maggie not to blind her lovely eyes 
with weeping for him. 

There are three rocks around the camp- 
fire, by Mamma’s tent, one a great big 
split one ; you can climb up the crack and 
lie on the top looking right down into the 
fire. Then there are two smaller ones 
together, which make a sort of throne or 
armchair for Mamma and were kept 
filled with soft fir, and a long flat table 
one where we had dinner often. Mamma 
and I sat here till dinner-time, talking 
about Billy and my visit and the journey 
to camp. 


81 


CHAPTER VII 


IN MY TENT AT NIGHT 

“ Mamma,” I said, sitting on my bed 
while Mamma brushed out my hair, 
“ Mamma, why couldn’t Mr. Charles 
come up and be with us here too in 
camp ? ” 

My hair is so long and slippery and 
thick that I cannot do it very well myself. 
Mamma’s was done already, and hung 
in two long dark plaits down her back. 

“ Oh, Mamma ! ” I said, getting ex- 
cited as soon as I began to think about it, 
“ do have him, please ! Why not ? Just 
think how ill and white he is there, lying 
still all by himself, and in a city, too, so 
much more horrid ! Oh think ! And if 
82 


IN MY TENT AT NIGHT 


he was here he might get better and better 
every minute ! ” 

“ But he is ill, my dear — don’t jump 
so, you are tangling your hair — ill and 
lame as well. How could he take such a 
long trying journey? It would be good 
for him, surely. I do not see how it could 
help doing him a world of good, but alas, 
how could we ever manage it ? It would 
take wings, or at the least of it a flying 
carpet. I wrote him, after he had been so 
good to you and to your James, and had 
a delightful whimsical answer in return, 
just like what he used to be like when I 
used to know him. — Certainly nothing 
could be more delightful than to have 
him here.” — 

“ But he does travel ! ” I said, jumping 
up and down more still. “ He has trav- 
elled, when he could hardly move, too, 
Hannah told me. John, the chore-man — 
and John is so nice — was run over by 
some people in an automobile. His leg 
83 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


was broken, and he was in bed, and he 
has five little children, and Hannah says 
doctor’s bills do beat the world in Boston. 
The people who ran over him said it was 
John who was drunk, and Mr. Charles 
had himself carried down and into the 
court and testified, and the people had 
to pay money instead of John, and Mr. 
Charles made them go to see John in the 
hospital and tell him they were sorry. 
And they went, and gave John’s oldest 
boy a watch and all of them boots and 
shoes, because Mr. Charles told them they 
had behaved like sneaks. Oh Mamma ! 
And he could sleep in a tent, and oh how 
he would love it ! Jerry and Tom could 
help him, and he has his crutches, and I 
am sure if he had the same nice con- 
ductors that they would help him in the 
train.” 

“ Don’t jump so, Flora,” Mamma 
said again. “ I shall have to tie your 
pig-tails to the tent-pole. I wonder — I 
84 


IN MY TENT AT NIGHT 


wonder — Flora, I’ll ask Papa. We’ll 
talk and think it over thoroughly, and I 
don’t know — I don’t know — ” 

She gave my hand a little thoughtful 
squeeze. 

“ Oh Mamma ! ” I said, “ it will be 
so perfectly splendid ! He can sleep in a 
tent with the fresh air all round him, and 
grow strong and better every single 
day, and not be so white and tired any 
more ! I am sure I am not so thin my- 
self already as I was last night ! This air 
tastes so good every time you breathe.it. 
Why, he may grow as strong as Papa, 
and never be lame any more, and be able 
to walk and climb up all the moun- 
tains ! 5 5 

Mamma could not help laughing as she 
kissed me. 

“ Ah my dear,” she said, “ there is no 
chance of that. But if he could possibly 
undertake the journey — I can’t see — 
I don’t see — It could hardly help doing 

85 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


him good when he got here. He even 
might get better and quite free from pain, 
though alas ! nothing can help the pitiful 
lameness. I will talk it over with Papa 
this very night ! ” 

The tangles were out and she braided 
my hair in two braids and tied them 
firmly with little bits of red ribbon. 

“ Where did you know Mr. Charles 
first ? ” I asked her. 

“ When he was a quick dark-haired 
lath of a boy of about twelve years old. 
He came for a Sunday with his father and 
mother, who died years ago. You see 
they were cousins of ours though not near 
ones, although we have not seen Charles 
now for so many years. I first saw him 
early in the morning, before breakfast. 
He had slid down the gutter-spout, which 
I was then very fond of doing myself, and 
was turning somersaults like a watch- 
spring all over the lawn. He was the 
most delightful boy I ever saw. That 
86 


IN MY TENT AT NIGHT 


was why I was so very glad for you to 
know him.” 

I lay down and curled up in my blan- 
kets, and she tucked them smooth and 
close, and kissed me, and blew out the 
light. 


87 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 

The very next day it rained. I 
woke up hearing the rain pattering and 
drumming on my tent, and outside 
there was a gray sheet of it pouring 
down. There was a big clear black 
puddle in the leaf mould outside, which 
was soaking into the moss and spreading 
out bigger and bigger, and little streams 
were running into other puddles all 
about the camp. The tree trunks were 
dark and wet, with the moss and lichens 
showing bright on them. 

“ Go in out of the wet, Miss Flora 
child ! ” Maggie screamed at me from 
the doorway of her tent. 

It was so delightful looking out at the 

88 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 


rain that I had forgotten that I had only 
my towel wrapper on and was standing 
with my bare feet on the nice wet moss. 

The rain poured down. I could see 
Tom carrying great wet logs to keep the 
fire up, in yellow oilskins and long 
rubber boots. I dressed standing on my 
log dressing-table, to keep my stockings 
dry. 

Mamma came for me in a long cloak 
with a hood over her dark hair, which 
she wrapped round us both, and we ran 
together to the dining-room tent. 

Mamma let us have hot coffee because 
it was so damp, and I drank it, with my 
fingers red and wet with rain. It was 
very jolly. Papa was dressed in oilskins 
too, and rubber boots, and there were 
rain-drops all over his hair and beard 
and running down his clothes. 

Two of the men were going for the 
mail, and they came for Papa’s letters, 
all wrapped up in oilskins and sou’- 
89 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


westers and great rubber boots, with 
the rain running off of them in little 
rivers. 

“ Don’t rush it, though,” Papa called 
after them, “ better put up at the Forks 
if it keeps on like this, or you will be 
swimming about in the canoe before 
night.” 

I wanted to go out to see them start 
and to wade in the different puddles, 
which were now getting very deep, with 
clear dark streams flowing from one to 
another. Papa put his oilskin jacket 
on me, which reached nearly to my 
ankles, and tied it round me with a 
leather strap. He then put his great 
big rubber boots on me, or rather lifted 
me up and put me into them. They 
were the very heavy kind of rubber and 
I was only just able to swing them by 
taking the longest and most swinging 
step I could. If I could have hopped 
I should have got on more easily in one. 
90 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 


Jerry was very cheerful. I found out 
afterwards that he always was particularly 
gay when it was raining or if there was 
anything dismal going on. He was cook- 
ing, getting ready what he called a 
“ partridge smother,” and had an um- 
brella with its handle down the back of 
his neck, and looked so funny. 

He said “ Good morning ” and then 
“ Where might them little shoes be 
carrying Missy to this morning ? ” 

“ Oh Jerry,” I said, “ you never saw 
things weigh so much in all your life, 
and they are perfectly enormous. Are 
you very busy? Can you come down 
with me and watch Tom start in the 
canoe ? ” 

“ Can I accompany a beautiful young 
lady ! As Hamlet says, 4 Now what a 
way to talk ! 5 Though as for seeing Tom 
start I don’t know as that’s what you’d 
call a lovely sight. You wait till I finish 
these potatoes and I’ll be there ! ” 

91 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


He finished his potatoes, which he was 
cutting up in little pieces and then put 
his umbrella handle down his neck again. 

“ Invention of my own,” he said, 
“ leaves my hands free and my mind 
unclouded. Useful, and they tell me, so 
becoming ; and the government won’t 
give me any patent on it.” 

The rain was hissing on the lake and 
coming in quick gray curtains, chasing 
each other fast and fast across it. 

“ Oh do wait till to-morrow ! ” I 
could not help saying as I saw them going 
down with the canoe, “ you cannot even 
see if it pours on you like this, and you 
will get so soaked all through and 
through.” 

A man with a long mustache named 
Mr. Sawyers was going to paddle in the 
stern, Tom in the bow. The mail, their 
dinner and supper and Tom’s rifle, were 
all wrapped up in a rubber blanket and 
oilskins, and put up snugly in the bow 
92 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 


of the canoe. They laughed at my say- 
ing they would get too wet, and Tom’s 
wet sunburnt face and white teeth looked 
so nice and cheerful in the rain. 

“ A little wet 
Is what you get,” 

Jerry sang to them, and then said: 

“ May your feet never lack water to 
grow in,” to Tom (his feet really are 
enormous), and Tom said: 

“ So long, old horse, and don’t weep 
too long for me if you fall in,” and then 
pushed off, and soon they were only a 
speck in the gray rain far up on the lake. 

“ Washin’ day for the trees,” Jerry 
said as we splashed back to camp, and 
showed me where they had their soap , 
little piles of foam in the puddles at the 
foot of the trees. 

“ Dryin’ day to-morrow, if the wind 
comes round, and then ironin’, and then 
fresh as Missy’s cheeks here in the rain.” 
93 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


It was one of the nicest days we had 
at all. Mamma’s tent was warm and 
dry and cosy, and the big fire outside 
burned well, though of course it smoked 
and sputtered. 

I had on, not my moccassins, but some 
little soft moccassin-slippers called “ Old- 
town moccassins ” and Papa had on the 
same, and Mamma had her pretty bronze 
kid slippers as if she was at home. She 
had on her scarlet wrapper with a cord 
round her waist, for she had got her 
long hair wet with running out in the rain 
and had to let it all down, like an Indian 
princess. 

Papa was very busy with papers, 
measuring with compasses and adding 
up figures, and Mamma and I had lessons. 

“ If A walk three miles while B is 
walking two miles and a half ” was the 
kind of example we were having, but 
every little while Papa would lean across 
and hand us one like this : 

94 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 


“ If Jerry fries ninety-seven griddle- 
cakes this morning (but he is much too 
lazy) and Flora eats forty-seven as usual. 
Mamma three and Papa one and a half, 
how many does that leave for Maggie’s 
breakfast ? ” 

And when a little later we were having 
cubic contents, which is a dreadfully 
hard thing to understand, he listened very 
carefully. Mamma was explaining how 
a whole lot of little cubes make up the 
big one and Papa presently said : 

“ Like this,” and gravely handed us 
an example, but it was a picture of a 
great black cat and a pointer dog, with 
“ Find cubic contents of Cat and divide 
by Dog ” written underneath. 

Mamma sent me to Maggie’s tent 
under a big umbrella to do my sewing, 
for she thought Maggie might be feeling 
rather lonely, but I might have spared 
my pains, for she was in a most tre- 
mendous fit of dusting and cleaning. 

95 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


There is not so very much to clean in a 
tent, but she was going over it with hot 
soap-suds and water. 

She made me sit on her table (which 
I could only do by sitting cross-legged) 
so as to be out of the way. 

“ Oh Maggie,” I said laughing, “ don’t 
you think the rain is making things clean 
enough already ? My face feels clean as 
a rubber sponge or as a bath towel.” 

“ Miss Flora ” said Maggie, stopping 
with her cloth in her hand (she did look 
very funny, with Jerry’s sou’wester on, 
which he had lent her, for “ the latest 
thing in sweeping caps ”). 

“ What is the chief great good that 
man, under Providence, has added to 
this natural world of ours ? ” and without 
waiting for me to answer, — 

“ Soap,” she said, and went on still 
more thoroughly scrubbing and cleaning. 

Late in the afternoon (after Maggie 
had gone to the kitchen tent, and told 
96 


THE FIRST DAY IN CAMP 


Jerry she would not mind seeing to his 
pots and pans, which were quite clean 
already), the rain stopped, and after 
sunset the clouds broke away in the 
northwest. They were still heavy and 
dark overhead, and the water was dark 
and was beginning to crisp up with the 
clearing-off wind, but in the break sun- 
set color showed, and lighted up the 
water in a bright streak. 

“ Better make all fast to-night Jerry,” 
Papa called, after we had been out on 
the point watching the last light and 
the dark sky, “ we shall have a blow I 
fancy before morning.” 

Jerry was still meditating and shaking 
his head over his kitchen tent, which 
Maggie had put into a perfectly terrible 
tidiness. 

“ Oh, woman, in thine hours of ease,” 

he said sorrowfully, 

“ Oh what a state of things is these ! ” 

97 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


I went to bed at eight, which is still 
my bed-time. Papa lighted my lantern 
for me, and then came in while Mamma 
was tucking me up to see that the ropes 
of the tent were all made tight and fast. 
It was blowing a strong breeze already, 
though in the woods we could not feel 
it much, only hear it through the trees 
over our heads. A tent looks bright and 
safe in the lantern light. 


98 


CHAPTER IX 


JAMES COMES 

I think it must have been the middle 
of the night when I was waked up hearing 
hurrying feet outside. Everything was 
in a wild roar of wind, the tent flies were 
flapping and cracking, and from the 
point came the crash of short waves, 
beating crisp and fierce against the rocks. 
It was such a whirl of noise that I could 
not at first think where I was or what 
was happening, but I heard quick voices, 
and then heavy feet running up from the 
point, and then Papa’s voice asking what 
was wrong. 

44 Canoe upset, sir ! ” some one shouted, 
4 4 went over trying to work past the point, 
99 

uofk 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


and they’re afraid there is a young boy 
drowned.” 

If I had known then who the young 
boy was ! 

I suddenly began to feel queer and 
shaking, and just then my tent flap 
opened with a gust of wind and rain, 
and Mamma came quickly in in her 
scarlet wrapper, and sat down by me on 
my bed. 

“ We can’t do anything at all,” she said, 
“ sweetheart,” taking my hands in hers, 
“ only sit quiet and wait ; only we know 
that Papa will do just the right thing, 
and he has nice Jerry and Tom and all 
the others to help him.” 

She put her arms close round me and 
I put mine round her and put my head 
in her lap to keep out some of the wild 
dreadful sound of wind. We could hear 
dear Maggie singing Scotch hymns in 
the next tent. 

I cannot quite bear even now to hear 
100 


JAMES COMES 


how Papa and the men went out into the 
water to their waists, and helped two 
men ashore and an overturned canoe; 
and then how in the darkness Papa made 
out something dark drifting and dis- 
appearing in the fierce gray and white 
whirl and confusion of waves, and how 
though the men shouted to him to let 
them go instead, he swam out, pushing 
a piece of cedar log in front of him, and 
then just as he thought he had lost sight 
of the dark thing he felt cold fingers, 
and a boy’s voice said, gasping and 
choked with water : 

“ May I hold on with you ? I’m all 
right if I can just manage to hold on for 
a minute.” 

If I had heard too, I should have 
known of course whose voice it was ; 
but the first thing that I heard was a 
great shout of “ All right ! ” and cheering, 
and I suddenly felt myself laughing all 
over, though with my head still in 
101 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Mamma’s lap, and Mamma leaned down 
and kissed me. Then we heard them all 
come tramping back and saw the lantern 
light, and some one said : 

“ Please put me down, sir ! Thanks 
simply awfully ! I’m all right, honestly ! ” 
“ Oh, mother, it is James ,” I said, 
“ James Auchinbreck ! ” 

If I was surprised James was at least 
as much so, if not more. 

“ Why, Flora ! ” was all that he could 
say as soon as he could speak, and then 
again, “ Why, Flora! ” 

It was the middle of the night and 
after, but Mamma let me come with her 
to the fire and sit by, wondering if I 
was dreaming or if we were bewitched, 
while we watched James having hot 
supper and getting warmed and toasted 
through and through. The wind was not 
so strong, though still coming in gusts, 
and the clouds had blown away clear 
leaving the stars out bright. 

102 



“ ‘ PLEASE PUT ME DOWN, SIR ! 


f 99 






































































































JAMES COMES 


James’s teeth were chattering with 
cold and wetness when he first came in, 
but Papa had put dry things on him, 
and made him put on his great dog- 
skin jacket lined with fur. He looked 
just the same, only that he was very 
brown and had grown taller, and he was 
hungrier than any one I ever have seen. 

It was of course too late to talk much, 
but he told us between spoonfuls of hot 
tea and partridge soup a little about what 
had happened, while his two guides, who 
as I have said got ashore all right by 
themselves, were being made warm and 
comfortable too by Jerry’s fire. 

He said that he had been with his 
father, on their geological expedition in 
the middle of Canada, when his father 
had suddenly been called away to go 
much farther north, far up into Alaska. 

“ It is a pretty dangerous trip,” James 
said. “ Over a mountain range that 
hasn’t been explored at all yet. I do 
103 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

hope he’s all right. Of course I couldn’t 
go,” he went on ruefully, “ I can’t until 
I’m older — though I’m growing — and 
the only thing for me to do seemed to be 
to come down to Aunt Louisa’s — Mrs. 
Mixter’s — at Newport. I told Father I 
would, and that I would try hard to behave 
while I was there. We had been working 
east anyhow, and had got a good way 
down, and Father decided to send me 
back this way with the guides, who were 
going home by canoe. It isn’t a long 
trip. We started yesterday to come down 
your lake. We wanted to get on and 
through to the Forks by morning, as we 
had to lose lots of time from low water 
farther back up in the woods. We were 
coming down under the lee of the shore, 
and didn’t I suppose realize quite how 
bad the wind was out on the lake. Father 
trusts these guides, Pierre and Le Loup, 
like anything, and I do think we should 
have got through all right, but just as 
104 


JAMES COMES 


we had worked past the point, — where 
we meant to stop if we might, seeing your 
light, for shelter, — we struck a water- 
logged stump — it wasn’t a rock, I’m 
sure — and then went over.” 

Then James did what I think was a 
brave thing to do. He got bright red, 
the way he does, and then said rather 
quickly to Papa, but looking straight up 
at him : 

“ Thank you most awfully, sir, for 
saving my life.” 

And Papa said hastily : 

“ That’s all right,” and shook hands 
and began talking right off about some- 
thing else. 

In the morning you would never have 
dreamt that there had been a storm at 
all. I lay still, looking out, wondering 
how it could have been so wild and 
raging, in such a rush and whirl of rain 
and strong wind, and only such a little 
while before. The sky was blue and the 
105 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


sun soft and bright. The tree-trunks 
showed black and wet among the leaves, 
and every leaf and twig looked freshly 
washed. Off in the forest near a white- 
throated sparrow was singing. There 
was the wet sweet smell of woods after 
a rain, and clear puddles stood all about 
in the leaf mould, but that was all 
left of the great storm. Everything was 
smiling. 

James was up already. He was stand- 
ing on the end rock of the point, shielding 
his eyes with his hands against the sun. 

“ There ! ” he said, pointing to a round 
black end of a log a good way out in the 
lake, “ Flora, do you see ? That is what 
tipped us over. I knew it wasn’t a rock ! ” 

Then he said “ Good morning,” and 
“ What a corking place this is that you 
are in,” and said he hoped Mamma 
and Papa had not minded “ having such 
a tremendous fuss and rumpus in the 
middle of the night.” 

106 


JAMES COMES 


“ Of course we could not help it,” he 
said, “ but it is horrid to be waked up, 
in such a storm too, and they both were 
corking.” 

He said the guides were all right, that 
they had slept in Tom’s and Jerry’s 
blankets, and that they were up now, 
and had got the canoe hauled up by 
Jerry’s fire and were patching it, and 
that it wasn’t hurt so much as he had 
been afraid. 

“ I suppose we shall have to go on this 
afternoon,” he went on ruefully. “ This 
place is so nice and every one has been 
so perfectly corking.” 

I asked him where Therese was, and 
he said she had gone back to take care of 
girls again in France. 

“ Which of course,” he said, “ is 
really all she is good for. Aunt Louisa 
had her to keep up my French accent 
and my manners, which you know are 
really both better than her own. I made 
107 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


up my mind that I would stand her and 
not bother Father for a year anyhow, 
and then he came back and saw her and 
she went.” 

James is the most unconceited boy I 
ever saw, but he knows perfectly well 
the things which he is good at. 

I asked him if Mrs. Mix ter ’s house at 
Newport was like the one at Boston. 

“ No ” he said, laughing a little, “ not 
as bad as that, at least not quite. There 
is the sea, you know, and I can be out 
sailing. But it will be pretty bad too, 
I’m afraid. People keep coming, and I 
have to go for drives, and there are butlers 
and footmen. The only real comfort is 
the way Aunt Louisa will look when 
she sees my clothes, for all my good ones 
are out there in the pond. I oughtn’t 
to speak like this about her, of course, 
but she only is my aunt after all by 
marriage, and she has been horrid, or 
tried to be, to Father.” 

108 


JAMES COMES 


He looked down at his clothes com- 
placently. He had on a leather-colored 
shirt and khaki trousers. They looked 
like a young Indian’s clothes, a young 
chief’s, but they certainly would not be 
Mrs. Mixter’s idea of what was proper. 

Mamma at breakfast was what Papa 
calls “ bristling with ideas.” Her eyes 
were very bright. After breakfast she took 
Papa down to the beach and walked up 
and down with him talking something 
over. Coming back they passed my tent, 
and I could not help hearing what they 
were saying. 

“ A boy, my dear, at Louisa Mixter’s 
house ! At Newport too ! He would be 
fretted to death with stiffness and nag- 
ging. This boy seems to be his father 
over again, nice and able and quiet, 
with the twinkle inside — I like a lad 
with quiet, thoughtful manners ; and 
he looks as if he would grow up to have 
his father’s power. Harry, he’d die ! ” 
109 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

Then she saw me and came into my tent. 

“ Flora/’ she said, “ I have waked up 
this morning with I think such a beautiful 
idea. I like your James lad very much 
indeed, and so does Papa. He ought to 
be a fine boy, being his father’s son. It 
will be delightful for you, and Billy, when 
he comes, to have him for a playmate, 
and it will be too perfectly horrid for the 
boy at that ill-tempered — at his aunt’s 
at Newport. She does not it seems know 
yet of his coming. And our plan is this : 
to send the guides on this afternoon 
again — they were only to go with him 
to where he takes the steamer — and then 
write his aunt and father that we shall 
keep him here unless we hear from them 
to the contrary. Now don’t you think 
. . . ” But I was so excited and de- 
lighted I hardly could think at all. 

When she told James he could do 
nothing at all at first but get bright red 
and stammer all over with pleasure. 

110 


JAMES COMES 


“ Oh ” he said, “ oh it would be too 
perfectly corking, of course ! You are 
awfully nice ! I should like it better 
than anything else in the world. This 
is the nicest place I think I ever saw. 
But do you think that you honestly 
— Aunt Louisa says I am really a — ” 
and then he looked up and met Mamma’s 
eyes, and then smiled his nice grave smile 
and they shook hands. 

Mrs. Mixter, when letters had had time 
to reach her, did not mind at all (“ of 
course, in fact, she really is awfully 
pleased ” James said to me), and so 
James came to live with us at camp. 

He fished up his own shelter-tent from 
the pond, having marked the place where 
he thought they had tipped over, and also, 
to his intense relief, his rifle and his 
fishing-rod. He dove for all of them. 
The last time he went down he came up 
red and out of breath with a dripping 
bundle of black clothes. 

Ill 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ This is my Eton suit,” he said, when 
he had brought it ashore and dropped it 
on the rocks, a dripping black sop. “ And 
now I really can’t ever wear it again. 
Aunt Louisa never will believe that I 
am years too big for them. It was she 
who made me pack them; and I hate 
to bother Father about anything like 
clothes.” 

Mamma spread them on the rock to 
dry and they looked very queer. He 
certainly can never wear them again. 

I forgot to say that he also found most 
of his blankets. Mamma laughed till 
she cried when he came up with the end 
of a long red one in his mouth, and as he 
brought them in she spread them out on 
the warm rocks to dry, with stones to 
hold them down. Just about then I went 
in too, from reaching out too far from the 
end rock, and Mamma let me stay and 
swim a little even with all my clothes on, 
though Maggie scolded us both. 

112 


JAMES COMES 


James had lessons with us every morn- 
ing. He sat cross-legged, whittling a 
chain, while Mamma gave me my arith- 
metic and my geography — Syria and 
those countries we were having — and 
afterwards while she read “ Wing and 
Wing 5 5 aloud. He also did some lessons 
by himself, geometry — imagine — and a 
set of maps which he was drawing. He 
wanted to get ahead so as to be able as 
soon as possible to go on with his father. 
He asked Papa if he would mind helping 
and explaining things to him, and Papa 
told Mamma that he was very quick 
with mathematics, and drew beautifully. 

All this time the kaleidoscope was turn- 
ing, and we never knew it, urltil one 
evening a week or ten days afterwards, 
when we had climbed out after supper on 
the point to where the rocks made a sort 
of armchair for a giant, to watch the 
sunset and to wait for the canoes with 
Tom and two of the others bringing back 
113 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


the mail. The sky was all a pure clear 
primrose color with the black woods below 
it. The lake seemed wide and lonely, 
and as if the woods might stretch around 
the world. The yellow light spread down 
the water, which was very still, and just 
as we were watching a late string of shel- 
drake came scattering along it, breaking 
up the shadows. Soon afterwards I saw 
two black specks far down the lake, and at 
the same minute James said, “ There 
are the canoes.” 

They came in just as we heard Papa’s 
voice, coming back along the trail. The 
letters were in a little oilskin package 
to keep them from the wet. We sat 
round the fire, with fire and lantern light 
to read them by, and at the first one, 
which was from the place where Billy 
was staying, Mamma said suddenly: 

“ Harry ! ” 

And Papa said “ Great Caesar ! ” 

Billy had come down with scarlet 
114 


JAMES COMES 


fever, though not badly, and Aunt 
Eleanor, who, as I have said, is Papa’s 
only sister, had broken her shoulder by 
a fall from her horse. 

There certainly was not much time to 
think of anything. Maggie, as soon as 
Mamma had told her, went to work 
packing, flapping and shaking the clothes 
out like a cyclone. James went quietly 
to work to help Papa, and Papa said 
nothing at all, but smoked and seemed to 
be thinking very hard. 

Maggie will never so much as think of 
letting me pack anything. 

“ Run along do, Miss Flora, child, 
and don’t be fretting me nor your 
Mamma. Here’s the entirety to be 
packed, and all inside the minute.” 

I went down to where Jerry was polish- 
ing his shining pails and kettles by 
the cooking fire. Papa had told him. 

“ Oh, Jerry,” I said, “ and we all have 
to go away ! ” 


115 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


I felt suddenly as if I could not keep 
from crying. It did not seem as if we 
could go. It all looked so cheerful, 
Jerry’s little tin kitchen, with the biscuit 
getting brown and crisp inside it, and 
smelling so good, and the fire and all 
the tin things shining and bright. 

Jerry was so funny, and so dear and 
comforting. He stopped singing about 
44 The Wave and the Grave,” and looked 
down at me with his head on one side. 
I could not help it, my throat felt sore 
and my eyes were full of tears, and when 
I laughed and shook my head two of 
them fell splash on the front of my frock. 

Jerry reached out and patted my 
shoulder with his big hand. 

44 Now Missy,” he said, 4 4 what you 
want to do is to cheer right up this 
minute. You see the lake out there? 
Well now it ain’t going to dry up nor fly 
away, nor yet the woods and islands. 
They’ve been here quite a spell, one thing 
116 


JAMES COMES 


with another, and I shouldn’t be a mite 
surprised when you come up next year, 
if you was to find them setting right here 
still. I expect to be just about as well 
and lovely too myself, next year, and 
the first thing you know you’ll be stand- 
ing right by that same handsome cracker- 
box, watching biscuit pretty near as 
beautiful as them (they say you can’t 
have perfection, only once) a-rising in 
that very same old pan.” 

“ Oh Jerry,” I said, patting him, 
<c you are so nice ! ” And he bowed and 
said : 

“ Not having my op’ry hat on I can’t 
take it off, not even when a lady makes 
me Compliments,” and he patted my 
shoulder again and then began beating 
up his flapjack batter. 


117 


CHAPTER X 


TROUT FISHING 

There is a trout brook that comes 
tumbling down from one of the forest 
mountains, only about half a mile up 
the trail, through the thickest and most 
mighty woods I ever saw. It comes 
white, white and foaming in little bright 
fierce cataracts, down and down over and 
between huge moss-grown rocks, and 
then to stop and breathe fills lovely clear 
black pools, where the ferns, maidenhair 
and other kinds, fringe the rocks along 
the edge as thick as moss. The only 
trouble is that the forest meets so closely 
overhead that it is hard to find room to 
handle a fishing-rod. The trees reach up 
tall, high over your head, and at noon 
118 


TROUT FISHING 


the sunlight falls down straight between 
them on the shining water. 

If you could have seen Maggie fishing ! 
And the funniest part was that she should 
catch more fish than anybody else. 

“ Fished when I was a lassie, back in 
Scotland. Fished barefoot in the burns 
the livelong day, and always had my string 
of trouts full as the lads’.” 

James and I both had our shoes and 
stockings off before she finished speaking, 
and having given herself away so beauti- 
fully she could only laugh and say that 
she would take the stick to us, if it was 
not for frightening away the fish. 

You see we had not gone away from 
camp at all. Everything had been ar- 
ranged quite differently instead. Mamma 
and Papa had gone home to be with 
Billy and to help Aunt Eleanor. The 
lumbermen had been sent on to a 
different lumbering district, much farther 
in the west, and James and Maggie and 
119 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


I, Tom, Jerry, and Mr. Sawyers were 
keeping camp, and Mr. Charles was 
coming ! 

“ You see, my lamb,” Mamma said to 
me the very night the word came about 
Billy, sitting beside me in my tent with 
her arms close round me, “ we cannot 
have you catching scarlet fever. I wonder 
if there ever was such a chapter of acci- 
dents in the wide world before ! Here is 
the house at home torn up from attic to 
cellar, so that there actually is not a 
corner dry from the rain, and over at 
the superintendent’s poor Miss Burnett 
in bed with a strained shoulder. Aunt 
Eleanor, as you know, will not be able to 
move for weeks and weeks, and Aunt 
Constance is abroad, Aunt Lucy and 
Cousin Amy in California, and Uncle 
Chris down South. I believe I could go 
on to third and fourth cousins fourteen 
times removed, and not one would be in 
his own proper place or hers ! So that 
120 


TROUT FISHING 


unless you and Maggie go to a summer 
hotel or camp out in the chicken-house or 
join a circus, I don’t see anywhere for 
you to be, unless at Aunt Carey’s great 
empty shut-up house in Boston, and that 
would be too utterly forlorn for you, my 
little one ! ” 

“ So what Papa says is this,” she went 
on, stroking my hair, “ that the place for 
you is right here where you are ! — ” 
I jumped at this with astonishment, but 
she went on quietly, holding me close to 
her. “You will have Tom and Jerry and 
your James, and Maggie, who is a match 
for any bears or Indians, and ’Bijah 
Sawyers, though I don’t know that he 
exactly counts. Papa feels that you will 
be just as safe here as at home, and safer, 
for there are no germs nor trains nor au- 
tomobiles. He has watched James care- 
fully, and the men of course he knows; 
and of course there will be strict rules 
about your not going up the trail or on 
121 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


the water alone, though for the matter of 
that you swim as well as a fish. 

“ And so that is the plan, my little 
one,” she went on, giving me a very 
loving hug and kiss. “ I don’t know how 
I can manage without having fits of 
worries all day and all night, but if Papa 
says this is best, it is, and I shall have to 
manage. And this is what we are going 
to do to make it safer yet. If we can, if 
the doctors advise it, and he himself feels 
he is equal to it, and if Papa can arrange 
so that the journey will not be too try- 
ing and exhausting — so many ifs ! — 
we are going to try to arrange what you 
first thought of, getting your Mr. Charles, 
Charles Wainwright, to come up and 
stay here for the two whole months 
with you ! ” 

“ Oh, Mother ! ” I said, giving her a 
hug. 

“ Won’t it be wonderful ? ” she said, 
giving me another one. “ We were going 
122 


TROUT FISHING 


to try, you know, in any case, and now 
it will help out so many difficulties. If 
only we can arrange it ; and if we can’t, 
why of course Papa will leave me and 
Aunt Eleanor to our broken backs and 
fevers and come straight back to you. 
But with Charles here with you we shall 
feel more than safe, for though he never 
took a degree he studied medicine, and 
though he is so crippled now, alas, alas, 
he knows the great woods as he does the 
back of his hand.” 

“ Isn’t it wonderful ? ” she went on, 
stroking my hair. “ Think what it may 
mean to him, how much life and strength 
he may get in spite of his lameness.” 

“ But you won’t be here, Mamma,” I 
said. I did not mean her to hear it, but 
I gave a sudden sob. 

“ I know, I know,” she said, “ but 
that is what we must not think about. 
We shall miss each other frightfully, of 
course, you and Papa and I, and whenever 
123 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


there has been sickness before you and I 
have both been nurses ^together. But we 
shall write very, very often, darling, and 
if everything goes well, it will only be 
six weeks before we shall be bringing a 
very limp and pale Billy back with us to 
get strong and brown and fat and tall 
up here, and then what times we shall 
have here, all of us together ! ” 

We hugged each other again, and both 
laughed, and both cried a little too, and 
then went out to Papa. 

They went that very night, starting 
off into the black darkness of the lake, 
for it was cloudy, with a fresh wind blow- 
ing, and there wasn’t even starlight. We 
watched their lantern like a yellow star 
out in the darkness, and swung a salute 
three times with ours, and they swung 
one back. I could not help feeling very 
lonely at first. It was so strange to feel 
that they had gone, the woods seemed 
nearer somehow, and more dark and tall. 

124 


TROUT FISHING 


Dear Maggie slept with me though, and 
it felt so comfortable to have her that I 
did not mind her snoring. 

That is how it happened that James 
and I and Maggie were fishing in Duck 
Pond Brook, where it comes tumbling 
down from Ega and Nega, the twin 
mountains, just about two weeks after- 
ward. 

I do not think I have spoken yet of the 
tall twin mountains, but they were the 
most wonderful things you saw from 
camp, or rather from the point. They 
rise up dark and high straight from the 
lake. To the east a very long deep bay 
runs in to their feet, and they almost seem 
to overhang it, they are so steep and high 
and almost sheer. Toward the lake and 
on top they are bare dark rock, but to 
the east they slope away in sweeps and 
ridges of unbroken woods that seem 
endless when you get up high enough to 
look down on them. 

1 25 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Early the morning of our fishing trip 
James and Tom went up the trail with 
their hatchets to get balsam fir for Mr. 
Charles’s bed, and after it was made we 
went on up to the brook. We were going 
to be gone all day, for James wanted to 
be sure that we had trout in plenty. For 
Mr. Charles was coming; we had heard 
when Tom brought the mail the night 
before, and though we did not know 
what day, we wanted everything to be 
ready and delightful. 

“ Put it thick, Flora,” James said, as 
I was making the bed, throwing a load 
of fragrant stuff down from his shoulder. 
“ Oh dear, how sticky you are getting. 
Never mind, it washes off all right, and 
Maggie will scrub you.” 

Then after the bed was done, and soft 
and thick and springy as all of us could 
make it, we went off on our picnic for 
all day. 

The best place to fish was on a rock in 
126 


TROUT FISHING 


the middle. I chose one right between two 
waterfalls. It was dark green with moss 
and lichens, and the water swirled past 
on both sides of it. The spray rose cool 
against my face, and the pleasant thunder- 
ing noise filled everything. It was just 
noon, and the sun came straight down 
between the bright green leaves high 
overhead. 

James was on a rock in the middle, 
farther up. He would do nothing but 
cast, which he did beautifully, having 
had lessons in Canada from his father. 
His fly dropped lightly first into one 
little pool and then another, his reel sang, 
and he did not seem to be in the least 
bothered by the trees. Maggie was below, 
with a great sunbonnet tied close under 
her chin, fishing with a thick short pole 
which Jerry had cut for her, catching 
trout steadily, and putting back the fourth 
and fifth ones, which she said was com- 
mon justice. 


127 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


They both fished steadily, but I did 
all sorts of other things besides. Partly 
I just sat still, it was so lovely. I fished, 
and caught some beautiful little trout, 
and I also got watercresses along the 
rocks and ate them, and I put my bare 
feet into the cool swirl of water by my 
rock, and felt it pull at them, and won- 
dered if they were as white as the fairies’. 

We had lunch below by Maggie’s 
rock. It was a broad flat one, with 
a cool cliff of black rock covered 
with ferns behind it for a shelter; and 
Jerry certainly does think of the nicest 
luncheons. This time we had cold par- 
tridge (though sometimes it was venison 
or bacon) rolled up in ferns ; dates, 
rolled up in ferns too, jam, cold biscuit, 
and as we were to be by the water, where 
there could be no possible chance of fire 
catching, potatoes, which we roasted in 
the ashes. 

Then we fished again, till by and by 
128 


TROUT FISHING 


the deep afternoon coolness came, and 
the shadow fell across the trees above. 
We put on our shoes and stockings, and 
James strung the trout on a long switch. 
Maggie took off her sunbonnet and un- 
pinned her dress, and we were just 
wondering when Tom was coming for us, 
when James touched my shoulder and 
pointed up the brook. A stag had just 
come down to a pool to drink, the same 
pool where James was fishing before 
luncheon. He waded quietly in, then 
gave a snorting cough and put his 
head deep in the water and drank. 
Presently there was a rustling and crack- 
ling, and the pretty heads of two does 
showed beside him. We could see their 
long soft ears and gentle faces plainly. 
They looked out quietly, and then began 
to drink too, but without wading in, 
while the stag licked and shook himself, 
and then blew long puffs in the water. 
We sat as still as stones, hardly thinking 
129 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


of breathing. At last they finished drink- 
ing, and licked each other friendlily, and 
the stag stood still in the water, and then 
he got out of it one leg at a time, and 
they all went quietly back into the forest, 
one after the other. 

“ Now Maggie, lovely one, we will go 
home,” James said, and just then we 
heard another and much louder noise 
and crackling, and a cheerful voice sing- 
ing, and there was Tom just come to 
take us back. 

The way was longer than I had re- 
membered, and the trees more huge and 
dark. Perhaps I was a little tired too, 
or sleepy with so much warmth and 
sunshine, for I stumbled more than once 
over the different fallen logs, and as we 
went along I suddenly felt lonely, and 
wished that Papa was there to help me 
up, and that we were going to find 
Mamma sitting by the fire when we got 
back to camp. 


130 


TROUT FISHING 

T om saw though that I was stumbling, 
and said, “ Here, hi ! ” and picked me 
up and put me on his shoulder, and 
James helped Maggie carefully over 
the bad logs and rocks. It is the very 
thickest part of the trail, through heavy 
hemlocks, and it was nearly dark before 
we saw the camp-fire glowing through the 
dark trees, and suddenly smelt the fresh 
wind off the lake. It cooled us in a 
moment. There was no sunset light, for it 
was cloudy and seemed to be getting ready 
for a storm. The clouds were low-hanging, 
and it felt wild and lonely. James and 
I went down to wash our hands while 
' Jerry was bustling about and getting 
supper ready, and then climbed out 
on the rocks of the point to watch 
the darkness and the clouds until he 
banged the dish-pan, which was the 
supper gong. I was just thinking that 
the wind was getting shivery, when far, 
far down the lake we heard a long call. 

131 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


James stood up, listening, and in a 
minute more it came again. 

“ It is Mr. Charles,” James said, jump- 
ing off his rock, “ don’t you remember 
how he gave different loon and moose 
and Indian calls one morning for us? 
It’s the same voice, and gracious ! how 
it carries ! ” 

“ It can’t be ! ” I said, but when the 
clear call came again, I felt it was. 
James ran back to get Tom and Jerry 
and the lanterns, and in a minute we 
were all standing on the beach together. 
Tom gave his famous great roar, like a 
bull moose, and then his high call, which 
Jerry calls the wildcat in a colic, but it 
carries very well, and this time we heard 
an answer. James has a call too, like an 
Indian’s, very clear and long, and he 
gave it from the end of the point twice, 
and this time the answer came back 
perfectly plainly. 

“A — ho — o — o — o — o!” 

132 


TROUT FISHING 


And Tom and James answered it again. 

Every one got lanterns, and Maggie 
hurried back to make sure the tent was 
all right, though she had looked at it a 
dozen times already. I stood close be- 
side Jerry, and at last we heard voices 
plainly, the men saying “ Now ! Now ! ” 
as they shortened stroke to come up well 
for a landing, and in what seemed only a 
few minutes more we heard the actual swirl 
of the paddles, and the canoes came out 
of the darkness into the ring of lantern 
light, and we heard Mr. Charles’s voice 
speaking, as if we had just come into the 
library to see him. 


133 


CHAPTER XI 


jerry’s theory 

“ The back is it ? That’s bad, that’s 
bad ! ” 

“ Yes, to be sure, the spine. Ye hurt 
the spine, d’ye see, and there ye are. 
Throwed out of a racing carriage when 
he was a wild young lad in college, as I 
hear. He was all broke and trampled 
like.” 

Maggie was kneeling rather stiffly on 
the rocks, washing towels with a stick, 
as she says they do in Scotland. They 
do it too in France, I think, though when 
I said so to Maggie she said rather 
scornfully, “ Dare say ; I never heard 
myself of their washing to any degree.” 

Jerry was scrubbing his bright kettles 
134 


JERRY’S THEORY 


in water and sand a little farther along 
on the beach, and they talked back and 
forth slowly and rather loud, and with 
long pauses in between, as if neither 
thought so very much of what the other 
was saying. James, looking particularly 
like Uncas in his leather-colored clothes, 
was fishing from the gray pine at the end 
of the point, and I, having still my darning 
to do, was sitting cross-legged in the sun 
a little farther in-shore on the point. 
We were all talking about Mr. Charles. 

For as I said, Mr. Charles had really 
come. He was right here in camp, 
lying by the camp-fire, his dark eyes 
looking and looking into the woods as if 
he could not look enough. 

“ The woods ! ” he said over and over 
again. “ The woods, the woods, the 
woods ! ” and he put out his hands on 
each side to take hold of the smooth tree 
trunks nearest him, “ and I thought I 
was never going to see them any more. 

135 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Oh young ones, you can’t ever know 
quite how much you’ve done.” 

“ He don’t move like it was his back,” 
Jerry said thoughtfully, scratching the 
back of his head, “ acts more like he was 
kind of bust all over. Not to say bust, 
but kind of numbed all over; spring 
gone some way, and no new spring to 
put him together again.” 

“ He will have had the best that money 
can buy, doctors, surgeons, and the 
whole affair,” Maggie said discouragingly. 

“ Ever take me for a nurse P ” said 
Jerry, tilting his cap on to the back of 
his head and looking up at Maggie. 
“ That’s what I am, though. And I 
learned it in Cairo, Egypt, which is a 
funny place. See me in my white nurses’ 
clothes, and I’m handsome ! ” 

“Eh — a nurse! Tell me the like of 
that ! ” Maggie called, derisively. 

“ This is to certify, et settery,” Jerry 
went on calmly, “ it is a fact ; but what 
136 


JERRY’S THEORY 

I was thinking over in my head is this. 
There’s no doctor up here to advise with, 
which is perhaps a good thing, and again 
perhaps it isn’t, and of course it’s just 
as he thinks about it himself. But there’s 
a way of — not rubbing exactly isn’t 
what you’d call it, but kind of what 
you might call handling all over. I 
learned it when I was over there from 
them brown Ayrabs. I’ve put together 
my father, and an English colonel, and 
my brother Tom — though I don’t know 
as you’d call that a handsome job — 
when they was bust, well, pretty near 
kindling wood. A hay load fell on 
Father. Yes. How does that strike you, 
Jim?” 

James had been listening, but he had 
not spoken, and kept on casting his 
fly in long casts. He had caught sev- 
eral trout, besides yellow perch, which 
of course are not so grand, though Jerry 
and I both think them very good. 

137 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


He shifted his rod and straightened 
himself in his tree. 

“ I should go ahead and try,” he said, 
“ this minute. It sounds as if it might 
be wonderful. How many kinds of 
things do you know, Jerry, anyhow? 
It couldn’t possibly do him any harm, 
could it; and if it gave him too much 
pain you’d stop. And we can write to 
Father, at least to Flora’s father, tonight. 
Five trout and seven yellow perch, and 
one I threw away. But it’s what you must 
expect, fishing here where it’s so shallow. 
I am coming down now.” 

Jerry was partly right and partly 
wrong, we found out afterwards, but oh ! 
thank goodness, he was much more 
right. As I have said, Mr. Charles’s 
back was of course permanently twisted, 
so that even now he limps ; but in a few 
weeks — but I am not going to tell yet 
everything that happened. Jerry began 
his rubbing, or working over, or whatever 
138 


JERRY’S THEORY 


you would call it right off, and you 
will see for yourselves. 

Mr. Charles belonged in camp from 
the first minute that he got there, just 
like James. Though he was so ill and 
weak and tired, he seemed to be at the 
head of everything from the first minute. 
Even Mr. Sawyers came to him for orders, 
and Maggie would have liked to slave 
for him; and though the journey took, 
as Maggie said, “ the very last weary 
drop of strength he had to give” (so 
that he himself asked as they landed if 
we had not a derrick handy to hoist him 
out of the canoe, for he did not think 
anything else could manage it, unless 
the ice-tongs), still from the first breath 
of the woods he seemed to get new 
strength. He lay very still all day, on 
the fir branches which Jerry had laid 
thick for him by the rocks beside the fire, 
looking up and far into the woods around, 
and loving, I think, every bit of bark 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


and leaf and twig. And he was nearly 
always full of fun, whether he was tired 
or not, and making funny jokes. 

He was in pain a good deal, I am afraid, 
and every little while had bad attacks 
of it (but less and less, thank goodness, 
as the summer went on), and after these 
he had to lie still in his tent a day or 
two and Maggie waited on him “ hand 
and foot,” and would have liked to do 
it, I think, on all fours. His tent had 
been put where he could lie and watch 
the stars when he was long awake, and 
feel the fresh wind blowing off the 
water. 

We now had such cosy meals, cosiest 
almost when it was raining, when the 
rain drummed on all the leaves outside 
as well as on the tent roof, and Jerry 
brought in the dinner wearing his big 
rubber boots, with his umbrella handle 
put well down the back of his neck. 

On rainy days we stayed mostly in the 
140 


JERRY’S THEORY 


dining-tent or Mr. Charles’s tent. James 
carved on his chain or other things, and 
I whittled too, or wove basket-work out of 
roots or did my horrid stockings. Then 
James worked at his geometry every day 
and I did my arithmetic, James sometimes 
helping me, because I wanted to surprise 
Mamma when she came back; she does 
so want me to do a little better. 

Mr. Charles read aloud, sometimes out 
of his book, which was Shakespeare, or 
sometimes out of Jerry’s, which was the 
Farmer’s Almanac. These were almost 
the only books in camp, except the Bible, 
and he read us chapters and chapters 
out of that. 

He made us cry with laughing over 
Puck and Bottom. He would begin with : 

“ Masters, spread yourselves,” and 
then: 

“ Will not the ladies be afeard of the 
lion?” 

“ I fear it, I promise you.” 

141 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


And then: 

“ For there is not a more fearful wild 
fowl than your lion living ; and we ought 
to look to’!” 

“ In this same interlude it doth befall 
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall,” 

finished us completely, and James laughed 
till he was bright red and the tears ran 
down his cheeks. 

Then Mr. Charles would say, “ Enough 
of these frivolities/’ and take the almanac, 
and read like this: 

“ James, my dear fellow, I hope 
you have not forgotten that you should 
never rub soap directly on flannel cloth 
or woollen goods. Make a mild soap- 
suds, in which soak them thoroughly.” 

Or: 

“ Flora, is it possible that you are not 
aware that now is the time to sow turnips 
for a winter crop? The old purple-top 
flat turnip, you will be glad to hear, 
142 


JERRY’S THEORY 


holds its place as the standard for a 
field crop, and with care furnishes a 
large amount of feed at small expense.” 

“ * Perhaps in no case are the results 
of indolence more conspicuous than in 
the care of poultry.’ I fear this may 
apply especially to Maggie.” 

(Maggie has chickens at home which 
she is dreadfully fond of, and which she 
nurses and watches over early and late. 
She says they are intelligent as people, 
and far more than most). 

Mr. Charles and Jerry had long bouts 
of seeing which could tell the most tre- 
mendous story, while James smiled and 
chuckled and went on with his whittling. 

“ Now Mr. Charles,” Jerry would say 
when he brought in the flapjacks, and 
we had said how good they were (per- 
haps after Mr. Charles had been having 
one of his attacks of pain, and we were 
having supper together in his tent). 

“ Now you say you call them flapjacks. 

143 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Now there was a feller I knew, nine feet 
high, — it takes a mighty tall man for 
first-class flapjacks — ” 

“Now Jerry, Jerry, come, I knew that 
man, and he wasn’t one inch over eight 
feet seven — ” 

“ And that man,” Jerry would go on 
as if he had not heard a bit, “ he’d make 
flapjacks two feet across, so light he had 
to put potatoes on the corners to hold 
them down, — when there was wind 
anyways high at all, that is.” 

“ Flapjacks don’t have corners, Jerry,” 
I said. 

“ Now I want you to believe this 
feller’s did; corners all the way around, 
and up the middle. Crispy corners, that 
was just the perfect beauty of them.” 

Jerry pretended he thought Mr. Charles 
“ one of these city sports,” when really 
he has lived in New York for several 
years himself. 

“ How high now was it, sir,” he said 
144 


JERRY’S THEORY 


one day, “ that you was saying that city 
house of yours was ? ” 

“ Now Jerry, hear what you are calling 
high ! You say you’ve lived in New York, 
but I believe it really was Squedunk. 
Why that little house isn’t over forty 
stories, not a foot. I will say, though, 
that it’s convenient. Folding legs and 
arms, you see, on all the chairs, and 
automobile fixtures. Yes, it’s very restful.” 

Then Jerry said it was remarkable, 
and told about his uncle’s farm in Maine, 
where onions sprout so fast they kill the 
cows. 

“ Crowd right up round them so they 
can’t get through. Why, my first cousin’s 
brother’s uncle’s wife lost nine good 
cows. Onions just grew right up and 
choked ’em, coming home to milking. 
Yes sir, it’s dangerous.” 

In the evening the fire flared up in a 
great sheaf of sparks, and all the near 
twigs of the evergreens showed soft and 
145 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


feathery. The warm light danced and 
flickered, and showed black openings 
and shadows in the woods. 

“ In the days of me youth,” Mr. 
Charles said, lying at full length beside 
the fire, and then would tell how he was 
once a merchant captain, or a pirate 
chief. 

Or, 

“ When I was principal goldsmith to 
the King of Spain,” 

Or, 

“ Performing on the harp once before 
President Diaz — ” 

There were real stories too, of things 
that really happened to a “ fellow he 
knew,” and Maggie would say, “ Eh, 
sirs ! ” and move up nearer to us with 
her knitting. 

Maggie would get excited, and tell 
stories too, herself, about fairy-rings and 
witch-fords, and more kinds of fairies 
and brownies than I had ever heard of. 

146 


JERRY’S THEORY 


“ The pyxies, do you see, and all such 
like/’ she would begin, or else tell about 
the “ old ancient lords that had their 
mighty castles and black dungeons of 
old,” and Jerry would stop with his dish- 
pan in his hand and listen till it was time 
and after for us all to go to bed. 


147 


CHAPTER XII 


BOGS, AND BEARS 

James had a hut, up through the firs 
and just beyond the hemlocks, where 
the old deserted trail turns toward the 
north. He found it one day when he was 
going fishing, though I think Jerry knew 
of it before. He had it for a sort of work- 
shop, and kept his fishing-rod and gun 
in it, and the different things we found 
which were nice to keep. The hut faced 
south, in what perhaps once had been a 
clearing, long ago, and it was nearly 
always warm and still and sunny. Par- 
tridge berries grew on the soft ground all 
about, and twin-flower. The ground is 
fine red rotted wood, where trees have 
fallen long and long ago, and partridges 
came nearly every day to strut in the sun 
148 


BOGS, AND BEARS 

and pick up cones, and ruffle up the 
powdered red wood into their feathers. 

James did whatever work he had up 
here, cleaning and polishing his gun and 
fishing-rod and mending and making 
flies, which he did beautifully. He sat 
on the roof to work, dangling his legs. 

I was sitting beside him one morning 
on the roof, when Tom came singing up 
the path, bringing us letters (only he 
played he had just come by accident). 

“ Why, funny thing,” he said, “ my 
coming on you two ! And funny again, 
here’s a letter right here in my pocket, 
and to a lady, to Miss Flora Maxwell. 
I don’t know as you’ve seen her any 
wheres abouts ? ” 

The letter was the first that I had 
had from Billy. 

“ Dear Flora,” it began, “ I hope you 
are very well. Tell Maggie she is an old 
duck, and I should think she must look 
149 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

pretty queer in camp. Tell her the cats 
are well and one will eat tomatoes. I 
am very well, at least I am not, but 
perhaps I shall be if ever I stop peeling. 
This is the first letter I have written yet. 
I do hate beds. Oh Flora, do please 
send me different things from bogs. I 
do like bogs better than any other kinds 
of places. I believe I was a boggist, or a 
tadpole, long ago. I lie here and think 
of the different kinds of things that grow 
in them, and I suppose it will be weeks 
and weeks before I see as much as a mud 
puddle. Mamma says I have written 
enough, and I suppose I have. Do send 
the bog things. This letter has been 
baked so you won’t get it too. From 
Yours truly, 

Billy.” 

Billy always puts “ yours truly 99 in a 
letter, because once when Papa was ill, 
and Billy was writing down some letters 
150 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


he dictated, Papa had to write a harsh 
letter to a person who had been behaving 
very horridly about the price of logs, 
and Billy forgot, and put “ your loving 
friend,” and Papa was not at all the 
friend, much less loving, of a person who 
had been cheating him for months about 
the logs. I suppose it sounded funny in 
that kind of letter, and Papa roared with 
laughter when he heard from the man, 
though I should think he even might have 
been annoyed. But it frightened Billy 
so much about sounding affectionate in 
letters that since then he never puts any- 
thing more loving than “ yours truly.” 

I read James the letter and he said, 
“ Why don’t we go this morning P We 
can get snails at least, and pitcher plants 
and sphagnum, and probably lots of 
other things besides. Let’s come along.” 

I know the way Billy feels about his 
bogs. You feel the same about the sea, 
with the sea wind that lifts and holds 
151 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

you, and the sea smell, and sea rocks 
under your feet to run on. I feel it too 
about upland hilltops, bare and open, 
with rocks and crunching lichens and a 
free wind blowing, where you feel as if 
you could run and climb for miles. You 
feel it about great swamps, lying all 
gray and ghostly, and about snow, of 
course, and woods in winter. 

We could not go that morning after 
all, for it suddenly came on to pour with 
rain, so Mr. Charles read us “ The 
Pirate” in his tent instead, while James’s 
last mended pair of stockings dried before 
the fire. The next morning though we 
started early, with everything wet and 
fresh after the rain. We took the landing- 
net, and two of Papa’s japanned tin 
botanical cases, to carry our lunch and 
bring back things for Billy, and a tin 
pail, to bring back fish and start a camp 
aquarium. 

It was a lovely morning, sunny and 
152 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


smelling of warm leaves. Our bog is a 
mile up the trail, and it is a wonderful 
place, a fairy play-ground. It is a 
water island in the woods, a little lake 
of clear still forest water, full of the 
green reflection of the trees, with water- 
lilies and yellow cow-lilies at one end of 
it. On one side is a little bluff, with tall 
dark hemlocks, and opposite it a tiny 
curve of beach where you find stickle- 
backs and sometimes cray fish in the 
shallows. 

The nearer end is all tall waving 
cotton-grass, and in among the grasses 
are beautiful swamp orchids. There are 
pitcher plants along the edge, next the 
shore, and wild white callas in the pot- 
holes, and sundew, the plant which 
catches insects on its sticky crimson 
hairs, and I am sorry to say kills and 
sucks them up. There are floating 
islands, where rails and redwings nest, 
and dry swamp islands or eyots near the 
153 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


mainland, sunny and warm, where Lab- 
rador Tea, swamp laurel, and all kinds 
of warm sweet-smelling things grow in 
the sun, and everywhere around you there 
is sphagnum, deep velvety soft pinky- 
grayey moss, which comes up in handfuls 
and armfuls if you pick it, and which is 
nice to make beds, or for packing things, 
or playing with in every kind of way. 

(James began in the first week building 
a canoe to paddle on the bog lake. He 
kept it in the woods beside the bog, and 
worked at it secretly, keeping it for a 
surprise. And I must say it was a 
surprise, for it was not ready until nearly 
September and at its trial trip, which Mr. 
Charles and Tom came up to see, it 
rolled over, and nothing would ever make 
it stay right side up.) 

We took off our shoes and stockings 
the first thing. The bog is very nice in- 
deed to wade in. You feel the velvet moss 
under your feet, and the water, which is 
154 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


clear and black, does not seem dirty, 
but only steeped with peat and sweet 
clean roots. 

We found all sorts of lovely things 
right off. We found mussel shells on the 
white sand, pearl-lined, snails, and an 
empty snake skin, and a redwing’s nest 
with four blue scrawled and scratched 
and spotted eggs in it, the second brood. 

We found cranberries, quite unripe 
and almost white, and creeping snow- 
berries, and I gathered a handkerchief 
full to make a necklace. We found 
pitcher plants of course, in clumps 
and colonies, and picked out beautiful 
pitchers. We found bladderwort, with 
yellow blossoms and little green bladders 
keeping it afloat, and we also found a 
pollywog with a bright orange stomach, 
and the most exciting thing which we 
had found at all, a crayfish. We took 
these last two home in the pail, and 
they got out the first night, and I 
155 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

believe Maggie knows how, but really, 
of course, they are much happier in the 
lake. 

“ Dear me,” James said, wading out 
farther and farther and with his face 
quite black, “you know this is really 
wonderful. It’s the best wade I’ve 
had for years and years. But I honestly 
think you oughtn’t to come out any 
further, Flora. It’s up to your knees 
already, and it’s awfully black.” 

Sure enough, the cotton grass where 
we were wading did seem to be settling, 
and it shook at every step for yards around 
us, but James went ashore, and after 
pulling and tugging till he was crimson, 
worked a black log with a piece of root 
out of the peat, which he laid down for 
me to walk along, and by balancing on 
this we climbed to five floating islands 
one after another, without getting much 
wetter, and had a splendid time. 

Afterwards we had lunch, and then I 
156 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


sat still in the sun, on one of the dry 
swamp-islands near the mainland, smell- 
ing the sweetness of the Labrador Tea, 
watching the butterflies, and stringing 
my berries into a pink and white necklace, 
while James waded farther in for cotton 
grass tufts, which he wanted for his flies. 

Soon I even stopped stringing, it was 
so very still and warm and beautiful. 
It was a little hot, but not too much. I 
seemed to get the breath of all the sweet 
things round me, and not only bees, but 
all kinds of other cheerful things were 
humming in the sun. The little lake was 
like a mirror, full of the green woods, 
and the water-lilies opened in the sun. 
Every kind of beautiful thing grows 
round the edge, and so thick that it is 
like the shining walls of an enchanted 
castle. You cannot see a foot through 
into the forest beyond. 

Presently James called that he was 
going farther off, to get some arrow- 
157 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


heads, and I began stringing my berries 
again. I do not know how far James had 
gone, but it had fallen very still, when it 
seemed to me that I began to hear rustling, 
and something working through the 
bushes on the side opposite where James 
had gone. 

I am quite silly about big wild animals. 
I knew that there were no dangerous 
ones, at least none near us, that panthers 
had not been seen for years and years, 
and that black bears run if they see you, 
but still I think of them sometimes, es- 
pecially at night. 

There certainly was a rustling in the 
bushes. Deer had been coming out now 
and again to drink, and I told myself it 
was one of them, but it was different. It 
was more stealthy and slow, and much, 
much heavier. It stopped, then moved 
some more, and stopped again, and then 
came on stealthily, and prickles ran up my 
back and over my hair. 

158 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


James was nowhere in sight, though 
his shoes and stockings lay there on a 
log, and now a turtle had come out and 
sat beside them. 

The heavy, soft, stealthy, rustling sound 
went on, and now I could see the bushes 
shaking, and presently they parted. 

Oh dear, it was a bear. He was 
enormous, and dark blackish brown, and 
I suddenly felt queer and empty all over, 
and my breath short. 

He looked out and round him quietly, 
and snuffed and put out his long tongue 
to lick at some early high-bush blueberries, 
and then backed into the bushes again, and 
then he changed his mind and came out, 
and began to roll slowly in my direction, 
though I do think without seeing me. 

I sat quite still, holding my berries in 
my hand, but squashed quite flat. I hope 
I should have done the right thing, and 
either “ shooed ” him away or sat quietly 
and let him snuff at me if he had wanted 
159 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


to, for of course black bears really do not 
prefer people for food, but just then 
there was a shout, and something fell 
with a splash by the bear’s nose, and 
made him turn with a surprised sort of 
grunt. It was James’s sweater with a 
stone tied in it, and James was running 
and breaking through the bushes, shout- 
ing and calling the bear names as he ran. 

“ Get out ! ” he called. “ Get out, you 
silly great goose ! ” And then I heard 
an actual whack, whack, and a great 
cracking and crashing as the bear backed 
and turned and began shambling off. 

“ Oh James, please stop ! ” I screamed. 
“ It is a bear ! ” but James paid no 
attention. 

“ Get out ! ” he called again, untying 
his sweater and beating and shaking it 
at the great beast. “ Flora, you’d better 
go over towards the bluff, though he isn’t 
coming at all in your direction. Go on, 
you great big black pig! Get out, go 
160 



“‘GO ON, YOU GREAT BIG BLACK PIG 


y y> 




BOGS, AND BEARS 


back where you belong ! ” till the poor 
bear crashed faster and faster through 
the trees and branches, and finally lum- 
bered away in a heavy trot. 

“ He’s gone,” James said, coming back 
red and out of breath, “ so scared he 
was perfectly silly. Never mind, I think 
we’ll go too, in the other direction. He 
simply is enormous, and if he happened 
to feel hungry, I really don’t know what 
we’d do. Where are your shoes and 
stockings ? These here seem to be mine.” 

We hunted, but I couldn’t find my 
shoes and stockings at all. 

“ Dear me,” James said, after we had 
been looking and looking, “ I know now, 
I picked them up and threw them after 
the bear. I thought they were mine, 
and I had nothing to throw. Dear me, 
and they may be anywhere by now.” 

He hunted faithfully everywhere, but 
he had run a good way into the thick high 
bushes and we could not find them, and 
161 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


as it was growing dark, we had to start 
without them, and James went up alone 
the next morning and found them, after 
hunting over an hour. He tried to make 
me wear his, which of course I would 
not do. I said: 

“ I do not want to, and they are too 
big besides.” But James only gets more 
patient the more he gets decided. 

“ I know they are too big for you,” he 
said, “ of course, but the bushes are 
extremely scratchy all the way home. I 
threw away your shoes and stockings, and 
you ought to wear mine back, but if you 
won’t, you have to wear one at least, 
and we’ll each be unscratched on one 
side,” and that was what we did. 

The way seemed longer than it ever had 
before, and the woods higher and harder 
to get through. It was growing dark be- 
sides, and I could not help thinking more 
and more about the bear, and James told 
me afterwards that he did too. As it grew 
162 


BOGS, AND BEARS 


darker we hurried more and more till 
our hands and clothes were covered with 
moss and dirt with climbing over fallen 
trees and rocks, and we were hot and 
and our faces covered with scratches. 

“ Gracious,” James said as he pulled 
me out from I think the fifth mossy hole 
into which I had tumbled, “ your hair 
is perfectly full of sticks already. Flora, 
imagine being lost. I hope we should 
have sense to find a comfortable place, 
and go to sleep till morning, but I don’t 
know.” 

How he kept track of the blaze marks 
in the growing dark I do not see, but he 
led us quite as straight as Jerry could 
have. The last bit, coming through the 
hemlocks, we almost ran, and burst into 
camp just as Mr. Charles (he said) 
was sending Jerry out with searchlights 
and bloodhounds on the leash to look 
for us. 

We went out on the point to wash our 
163 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


hands and faces. The lake was darken- 
ing fast and a fresh wind was blowing. 
There was only a last strip of pale clear 
yellow in the west, and in the middle of 
the light the new moon shining. No 
stars were out, for overhead was all dark 
stripes of cloud. We put our hot faces 
down and let the waves splash them, 
and ran our arms down into the cool 
deep water. One lonely loon was calling 
far away, and as we looked, a late string 
of sheldrake came down the lake, scatter- 
ing the water in a bright streak under 
the shore. 


164 


I 


CHAPTER XIII 

Maggie’s theory 

Mr. Charles certainly was much 
better. He still had bad attacks from 
time to time, and often too he still was 
very tired. He would lie silently looking 
into the trees or away over the lake, and 
I could not help thinking of what Mrs. 
Carey had said, — “ Something else hap- 
pened, something besides his illness, 
which made him very unhappy/’ 

“ Don’t you think he’s ever so much 
better ? ” I asked Maggie one morning. 
“ Please, you are pulling my hair ! ” 

We could hear Mr. Charles humming 
a German song inside his tent, and 
presently he shouted to Jerry that he 
was going fishing. 


165 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Maggie closed her lips. She was brush- 
ing my hair, which she does very hard, 
and presently Mr. Charles came and 
stood in the doorway of his tent, fitting 
his fishing-rod together. 

He was, as I have said, wonder- 
fully better. He was very thin of 
course still, but he was browner and 
stronger. From lying so white and tired 
by the fire, he was beginning to get about 
the camp, first with Jerry’s help and 
very slowly, but soon helping himself, 
catching at the trees and so lifting and 
swinging himself along. 

It was a great day when he first got 
down to the shore, to fish from the point. 

“ Aha,” he said, settling himself down 
between the rocks. “ My kingdom for a 
fish! ” and sent the long line hissing out 
thirty yards over the water. 

He caught his trout with a quick flick 
of his wrist, and Jerry made a cake to 
celebrate and it fell perfectly flat. He 
166 


MAGGIE’S THEORY 


fished more wonderfully than I ever saw, 
and Jerry said, “ The Dogs ! ” and 
“ Cucumber ! ” which were his strongest 
expressions. 

Still Maggie would not say she thought 
he would get well; and that very night 
after we had been talking he had another 
bad attack of pain. 

“ Is the pain bad, my lad ? ” I heard 
Maggie saying in the middle of the night. 

“ Oh Maggie dear, yes, it is, it is a 
bad one. Never mind though, they 
don’t last long, thank goodness, and now 
thank you, and do go to bed, like a good 
soul, and get some sleep.” 

I don’t think Maggie did go, but stayed 
rubbing his hands until he fell asleep at 
last, towards morning. 

In the morning he was white and tired 
again, but very funny, as he was always 
after one of his attacks. 

“ It’s horrible to laugh,” James said, 
coming out with his face bright red and 
167 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

his eyes streaming, “ when he’s so weak 
and tired, but he’s been telling Maggie 
how he once had red hair and was en- 
gaged to a beautiful Circassian princess, 
and what can you do ? ” 

“ Oh Maggie dear,” I said, “ why 
doesn’t he get well ? ” 

“ The back,” Maggie said sadly. “ It’s 
his back, his spine.” 

“ But Mr. Charles says his back is so 
much better ! ” 

“ Yes, and so it is,” Maggie went on 
more cheerfully, “ and I don’t say but 
he’ll be better yet. Never rightly straight, 
like James McGregor there ” (Maggie 
was extremely proud of James) “ but 
strong enough to take his way through 
life. But do you see, there’s more of 
it besides, or to my way of thinking. 

“ The friends, the folk, the love and 
need that holds ye, that is what binds 
the spirit,” dear Maggie went on saying. 
“ What has he loving him or that belongs 
168 


MAGGIE’S THEORY 

to him ? His back’s the least thing now, 
or would be if he’d the right thing to 
bring back life to him. There’s been 
years of sorrow and trouble on him, and 
the lad is fretted through and through 
with loneliness. How can the tree grow 
without light and rain? He wants a 
wife.” 

Mr. Charles was well and bright again 
the next day, and as it was raining 
we acted charades in the dining-room 
tent, and afterwards a play. I was the 
Sleeping Beauty, James the Prince, Mr. 
Charles the old king, and Maggie (calling 
it childish doings) was a splendid fairy 
godmother. We tried to get Jerry to 
come and be the nobles, but he said he 
only came out now in Grand Opera, — 
“ In justice to myself,” — but he was 
audience. 

That night we had our first alarm in 
camp, and it was Maggie who made it. 

“ I see him ! Watch him go ! I tell ye, 
169 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


it’s bears at last ! ” I heard her scream 
as I jumped awake out of a sound 
sleep in the middle of the night. 

There was a great noise and confusion, 
every one talking at once, and Maggie 
screaming directions. 

“ Look at him go, the black one ! ” 
she cried out, which made me feel that 
at least it wasn’t panthers. Suddenly 
there was a much louder confusion of 
voices, all Jerry’s pails, I should think, 
fell over in one crash, and the kitchen 
lantern went out and then we all found 
out suddenly what it was. 

It was not bears. It was two smaller 
animals, and black and white . They 
had been eating up the cake behind the 
tent and had been frightened suddenly, 
and they got all over everything. Mr. 
Sawyers was very much the worst, poor 
man, next morning. He could not come 
near the tents for nearly a week, and 
Jerry had to bury most of his clothes. 

170 


MAGGIE’S THEORY 


James was not so surprised as I sup- 
posed he would be when I told him what 
Maggie had said, that Mr. Charles was 
lonely and needed to be married. 

“ I suppose probably he does,” he said. 
“You see he has no brothers nor sisters 
of his own, and no father nor mother, and 
imagine ! The only trouble is that I 
don’t see what we can do about it, for 
there are no girls nor ladies here at all.” 


171 


CHAPTER XIV 

THE FAIRY LADY 

I went down one morning to the beach 
to get foam islands in behind the rocks, 
for there had been a storm the night 
before. It was early and no one else 
was up but Jerry, who was busy with his 
shining pans and kettles. It was all 
bright and blue, with sunlight sparkling 
like diamonds. There were my foam- 
cups dancing behind the rocks, which 
were all clean and black, and I climbed 
out to get fresh ones, white and crisp. 

I had my shoes and stockings off, not 
to get wet, and after I had played with 
my foam-cups I went on along the 
second beach, which curves to the south, 
172 


THE FAIRY LADY 


to warm my feet where the sun fell on it. 
The sand was firm and hard and the 
water clear, with only a few soft blazes 
of diamonds where the sunlight fell on 
it between the trees. There were ribbed 
wave-marks under the shallow water, 
and you could see black fallen twigs 
and branches and water-rotted wood 
for ever so far out. 

I warmed my feet and got them cold 
again with wading, and went farther and 
farther, to where the beach begins to 
curve to the east, towards the deep Ega 
bay. The trees and bushes hung over 
the edge of the beach, and I thought it 
would be fun to pick high-bush blueberries, 
and take them home for Jerry to cook 
for supper. I was sitting on the sand, 
making a cup of wild grape leaves to 
hold them, when I heard a person’s voice 
behind me singing. I dropped all my 
leaves and all the berries which I had 
gathered in my lap. 

173 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


It was a real voice, and it was close 
behind me in the woods. 

“ The fairies lead ye through the woods 
by song,” Maggie was telling us only the 
night before. “ They sing high and clear 
like the falling waters.” 

This voice was sweet and high, like 
carolling, and what made it seem more 
strange, I did not hear a single sound of 
footsteps. I felt little shivers running up 
my spine. It is no use though sitting 
still when you are frightened; you only 
get more creepy up the back of your head 
and down your back, as if you could not 
possibly move at all, so I jumped up and 
took hold of the branches hanging over 
the beach, and pulled myself up the bank, 
with my heart thumping. Inside the 
woods were all green underbrush, and I 
could see nothing, but I pushed the 
leaves apart and went ahead, going quite 
softly by stepping on the moss. In front 
of me there was a big gray rock, and on 





“SHE WAS SITTING ON THE MOSS — DRAWING A TINY 

FLOWER.” 















































































THE FAIRY LADY 


the other side of it I saw the fairy 
lady. 

She was sitting on the moss, leaning 
on one hand, and with the other she was 
sketching a tiny flower. She was dressed 
like a boy, or like Rosalind, in leather- 
colored clothes, and her hair fell round 
her shoulders like a boy’s. She had a 
scarlet cap, a little on one side. 

I saw that she was painting, not only 
sketching. She had a silver cup, sunk in 
the moss, and the water tinkled in it as 
she washed her brush. It was a purple 
flower she was doing, a curious shape, 
striped purple and white, with two rose- 
colored horns or petals up behind and 
a little yellow beard. I had not seen them 
before. There were several about, and 
afterwards I picked some and put them 
in my frock . 1 

She talked to the flower as she painted 
it, and every little while she broke out 

1 The flower is Calypso Borealis. 

175 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


singing, and a thrush sitting on a low 
branch came and looked at her. These 
were the words, all sung with pretty trills 
and carollings. 


“ There is a lady sweet and kind, 

Was never wight so moved my mind. 

I did but see her passing by, 

And yet I love her ! — 

And yet I love her till I die ! ” 

I learned it standing there while she 
was singing it. I never thought at all of 
speaking to her. I stood quite still 
beside my rock, breathing as softly as I 
could. 

At last: 

“ There,” she said, “ my pretty, you 
are done ! Yes, and I do think you are 
nice besides.” 

She put her cheek down on the green 
moss to look at the flower sideways, and 
then she laughed and kissed it. She 
washed her brush out carefully, and then 
176 


THE FAIRY LADY 


took the silver cup out of the moss and 
looked about for somewhere to pour out 
the water, which was painty. I was 
glad she did not want to throw it on the 
pretty ferns and moss. Instead she 
poured it on the roots of a great hem- 
lock. 

“ For I don’t think,” she said aloud, 
“ that it will hurt your skin ! ” 

She looked up the great trunk to where, 
far up, the upper branches were out free 
and caught the sun. 

“ You splendid thing ! ” she said. 

When she stood up, I saw that she was 
tall, taller than I at least, and very slim. 
She had on soft brown-fringed moc- 
cassins or moccassin-slippers, cross-laced 
high with leather thongs, and with 
scarlet bead-work on the toes. She 
stooped to fasten one, and then stood up 
again. She wore a silver pencil case, 
carved, at her belt, and into this she put 
her pencils and her paint brushes. The 
177 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


paint box and the silver cup and sketch-book 
went in a leather pouch hanging at her 
back, and I saw she had a horn, a hunting 
horn, hung on a scarlet ribbon over her 
shoulder. She sang still as she put her 
things away, and then in a minute she was 
gone, flitting much more than running 
through the woods. 

I stood looking at the place where the 
woods had closed after her, and all about 
the moss where she had sat, and then re- 
membered breakfast time, and climbed 
out again through the high shrubs on to 
the beach. 

I almost felt I had imagined it. Every- 
thing was still, sunny, and silent. There 
was the empty beach, there were my 
footprints (bare, which Maggie would 
not like) ; there was the lake dancing 
and sparkling like diamonds. There 
was the tall still shadow of the 
woods, and the dark wooded islands, 
and it seemed as if no person could 
178 


THE FAIRY LADY 


possibly have been there, breaking the 
sunny silence and loneliness. 

Every one laughed at me when I got 
back to camp (only Maggie took me 
into her tent and reminded me, that 
a lady was a lady “ in what place so- 
ever,” and no lady ever was unpunctual 
at meals). They asked me if I had 
seen brownies as well as fairies, and 
Jerry said my lady was a fly-up-the- 
creek, which turn into anything they 
like, “ fishes or folks,” and Mr. Charles 
said if I had looked closer, I should have 
seen she really was a fresh-water mer- 
maid — “ which have blue tails, of course, 
instead of green.” 

Only James believed me. 

“ Of course it isn’t a fairy; that is 
nonsense. It must have been a person, 
and that seems nonsense too, but if you 
saw her, why then of course you did.” 

We hunted for her, but found nothing 
at all, though once or twice I thought 
179 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


I heard her singing. They did not 
laugh at me for long, though. We were 
going out fishing for pickerel off one 
of the swamps at night. We passed a 
long low ghostly swamp of bulrushes, 
where a great blue heron got up as 
we went by, and then a swamp huger 
and still more ghostly, miles of dead 
and dying ash-trees, bearded with long 
gray moss. They reach nearly as far 
as the foot of the mountains, still and 
silent, with black streams showing every 
little while between the trees. It really 
is a horrible sort of place. You could 
get lost before you had gone ten yards 
and flounder and stumble on until you 
died, unless you kept your way by 
climbing trees to see. The great blue 
herons nest here, far, far up, and night 
herons, but nothing else I think, but 
frogs and snakes. Even the moss and 
thick ferns and creepers are a poisonous 
green. 


180 


THE FAIRY LADY 


Coming back with a string of bright 
green and yellow pickerel, we passed 
the bulrush swamp again. It is the sort 
of place where Indians might hide, where 
the tall rushes shut you close after the 
first step; and here at a little opening 
we saw a canoe drawn up , and on the 
sand beside it a pair of small brown- 
fringed moccas sin-slippers, with scarlet 
bead-work on the toes l 


181 


CHAPTER XV 


THE STORM 

It began with a good thorough soaking 
rain, and the soft leaf mould drank and 
drank it up. The next day it kept on, 
and all the night, and the next and next, 
drumming steadily on the leaves till the 
water was standing in clear black puddles 
everywhere, growing almost into clear 
black lakes, and the fire hissed and 
scolded, and Jerry said he should have 
to make tea in the hot water bottle. We 
waded in rubber boots all about camp, 
and all carried umbrellas. 

We stayed mostly in the dining-room 
tent, having lessons and games with 
Mr. Charles, and then working while he 
read aloud to us. We all wrote birch-bark 
letters home to Billy, and made birch- 
182 


THE STORM 


bark envelopes to fit them, and sealed 
and stamped them, and he really got 
them ; and Mr. Charles and James made 
a checker-board at one end of the dining- 
room table, whittling the rough wood 
smooth, ruling the squares, and color- 
ing the alternate ones with charcoal and 
a little oil. They were two days doing 
it, for each carved a different pattern at 
his end of the board, and then they 
played with acorns, green and brown. 

It was the most comfortable rain I ever 
knew. The tree trunks were all fresh 
and bright and black, and the leaves wet 
and dripping. Every moss cushion was 
as wet as a sponge and it seemed as 
if you could hear the whole forest 
drinking quietly. 

On the third day, Mr. Charles said he 
had sent home for his second best diving- 
suit, and that he would have directions 
for putting on life-preservers put up in 
all the tents. James floated a cedar log 
183 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


in the pond which had formed behind 
the kitchen tent, and the woods were full 
everywhere of the sound of rushing 
streams ; and then in the afternoon the real 
wild storm came on. The quiet sound 
of rain falling and dripping, soaking 
its way steadily into everything, changed 
to a wild rush of lashing wind and storm. 
The forest bent and roared. It seemed 
as if the blasts were tearing the great 
trees apart. Sharp rain-gusts drove 
across the lake, which soon was blotted 
out. Clear black torrents poured down 
past the tents, white mist was beaten 
from the ground, and there was a wall 
of gray rain between each tent and the 
next. The rain stopped a little when a 
gust came, and the wind shook the tents 
as if it would tear them down, but mostly 
it was a perfect thundering down-pour, 
as if it was being poured down out of the 
black clouds in buckets. 

I got to the tent in a gust which nearly 
184 


THE STORM 


blew me through the flaps and left me 
out of breath, and Jerry and Tom and 
Mr. Sawyers all three helped Maggie. 

At four o’clock James’s tent blew 
down flat, and they could not even try 
to put it up again, but weighted it down 
with stones and left it where it was. 
Mr. Charles came in laughing, drenched 
and dripping, rain running down his face 
and his broad shoulders, from having been 
out with Tom putting extra ropes on our 
three tents, while James and Jerry and Mr. 
Sawyers did the kitchen ones. James 
said when he got out that he could 
hardly open his eyes against the rain or 
see his own hands, and as for talking, 
you might shout yourself black in the 
face, but it made no difference, and he 
and Jerry nearly fastened Mr. Sawyers 
up inside the tent, not knowing he was 
there. 

“ Canoe gone, sir ! ” Tom panted, 
staggering into the tent out of the driving 
185 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


storm. “ The light green one. I thought 
they wasn’t far enough up amongst the 
trees, and I was hauling them up farther 
down there with Sawyers when the wind 
whirled her out of our hands like a flitter- 
bat. She’s got twenty miles to drive, 
though, and only sand to land on, and 
maybe this football game will stop before 
she gets there.” 

It had grown too exciting to either 
read or play games, and we sat in the 
dining-room tent wondering how soon 
it would grow a little better, or how it 
could possibly get worse, which it seemed 
to be doing. 

“ Flora, do you feel actually sleepy ? ” 
James said. “ I do. I meant to help 
Jerry with the lanterns, and I am going 
to, but it seems as if everything but 
sleepiness was beaten out of my head. 
It is foolish for a storm to last as long 
as this.” 

They got the lanterns, for it was nearly 
186 


THE STORM 


dark, though only five o’clock, and the 
lantern light made the tent seem cosy 
and safe, even with all the roar of 
storm outside, and I actually went to 
sleep with my head on Maggie’s knee. 

It was only a little while after, with the 
storm at its height, that we all heard 
a cry. It woke me up as if I had been 
struck. It seemed to come from the 
woods, a call or cry for help, and we all 
jumped to our feet, and then, just as a 
small wet bird is driven by the rain, a 
small, slight, slender person seemed to 
flit or be blown through the woods and 
into the tent and — 

“ Oh,” I screamed, “ it is my fairy 
lady !” 

There she really was. She was 
drenched and dripping with rain and 
she was out of breath, as if she had 
beaten her way here through the storm. 
She was still dressed in her boy’s clothes, 
like Rosalind. 


187 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Oh can you come and help ! ” the 
Fairy Lady said. 

We all stood staring at her as she 
stood leaning back against the tent-pole, 
panting for breath. 

“ There has been a landslide ” she 
said, between quick breaths, “ a dreadful 
one. Oh, do you suppose that you 
can come to-night ? I came on here for 
help as fast as I could. We knew there 
was a camp here. We have seen your 
light.” 

“A landslide — ” Mr. Charles said 
coming forward. The rest of us were 
too surprised to speak. 

“ Yes,” she said, still breathing in quick 
gasps, “ It is on the other side of the 
mountain, of the Ega. We have been there 
all summer. There suddenly came a great 
roar out of the storm, and then rocks — 
it seemed as if the whole mountain-side 
was down on top of us — Oh do you 
think you can come now, to-night ? It is 
188 



“‘OH, help!’ THE FAIRY LADY SAID, ‘PLEASE HELP ! ’ ” 
































































































































































. 











THE STORM 


a storm, I know, and it is dark, but I 
can show you every step of the way ! ” 
“ My child,” Mr. Charles said quietly, 
“you could not go back to-night. How 
you got here at all is more than I can 
imagine.” 

“ Oh but I can, I can ! ” she said a 
little wildly. “ I am not tired at all, and 
I was not hurt or scratched a single bit ! 
I must go back to them ! How could 
you tell the way ? ” 

“ We could not possibly let you,” 
Mr. Charles interrupted. “ It is eight 
miles from here to the foot of the Ega. 
How you can have got through in this 
storm I do not see ! We cannot let you. 
But you must try hard not to be too 
anxious,” he went on gravely and kindly. 
“ We shall try to get help to them, and we 
will trust that they are only stunned with 
the force of the fall. How many of you 
are there in camp ? ” 

“ Three,” she said. “ Besides myself, 
189 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS, 

that is; my uncle, Uncle Lewis, and the 
two guides. I could not make them hear 
at all, nor speak — ” 

“ We shall try to get help through at 
once,” Mr. Charles said. “Try to tell 
carefully just how you came, and we shall 
get to them. The storm is easier already ” 
(which was true ; the rain was steady, not 
in drenching torrents, and there was a 
great sighing and waving of the trees, 
instead of the roar of wind), “ and there 
will be a late moon before midnight.” 

“ Can you go now ? ” she said. 

“ I can’t” Mr. Charles said flushing 
up, a painful red, “ I’m lame. The 
men can get through, though,” he went 
on cheerfully. “ They know this country 
like the back of their hand. And now 
you must drink this, and sit down and rest.” 

He made her drink something out of 
his silver flask, and made her sit down, 
and Maggie covered her with cloaks and 
shawls, everything which we had been 
190 


THE STORM 


able to keep dry, and Mr. Charles went 
out to speak to the men. All three were 
going. 

“ Now try to tell us,” he said gently as . 
he came back with Tom and Jerry, and 
signed to Maggie and me not to disturb 
her. Her soft lashes had drooped, indeed 
for a minute she seemed to droop and 
waver all over but she roused herself to 
explain to them clearly and carefully. 

“ It is straight to the east from here at 
first,” she said, “ I think for more than a 
mile. I do not think that there is anything 
different or special. Then there is a big 
split rock with a forked pine growing 
beside it, and you turn south just at its 
corner, and keep on. I bent twigs as 
much as I could. I think it is an old 
trail too, and that there are blaze marks, 
but how can you tell at night ? ” 

She told them carefully every step of 
the way. Only once she seemed to be 
troubled and frightened. 

191 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

44 Oh do you think that they can do 
it P ” she said to Mr. Charles, and Mr. 
Charles nodded, though without speaking. 

Jerry watched her and listened, and 
nodded and said, 44 Yes, yes,” kindly 
and cheerfully. Only when she had told 
them about half the way, he stood up 
and interrupted. 

“ Why, I know it .already,” he said, 
“ You needn’t tell me one word more, 
young lady. Swings to the right through 
a wood of little young beeches ? Why 
it’s the old Ega trail, plain as the back of 
my hand ! ” 

44 Oh do you know it ? ” she said. 
44 Do you think you really can find it ? ” 

44 Like my own name. Just like Jere- 
miah Mixter. Why, I know every step 
of the way, and where you’re camping. 
Don’t you worry nor fret, we’ll get there 
sure as a Dutchman. 

44 Why it’s a bouley-var,” dear Jerry 
went on, smiling to cheer her up. 44 Plain 
192 


THE STORM 


as my brother Tom, and now I’m talk- 
ing,” and he would not let her thank him. 

Mr. Charles limped out to get bandages 
and ropes and medicines. 

“ Now Jerry,” he said, “ do you 
think you can fetch it? If it keeps on 
like this the moon will be out clear in two 
hour’s time, but it will be dark as the 
inside of your pocket yet in the woods, 
and as wet as a well. We can’t spare 
time, though. We’ve got to get help 
through. Keep your lantern going all the 
time, and blaze as you go ; stop entirely 
if you do miss the path, and don’t be too 
sure that you can’t get lost, old stick-to-the- 
trail !” 

After they had started Mr. Charles 
and James hunted about among Jerry’s 
wet cooking things and brought us 
supper. (The men had taken theirs 
before they went.) The rain had stopped, 
but every leaf and twig and branch in the 
forest was dripping. It was all soaked and 
193 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


wet, wet crackers and wet bread, dough- 
nuts all soft and spongy, and chocolate 
and wet dates, but it was very good. 

Mr. Charles made the Fairy Lady eat, 
though at first she could not, and then he 
and James made the tent as comfortable 
as they could with shawls and rugs (the 
dinner-table was the only place that was 
dry), and then went off to spend the night 
as well as they could in the dripping 
kitchen tent. 

“ I cannot thank you ! ” the young 
guest said as they said good night to her. 

“ Try to get a good night’s sleep, and 
not to be too anxious. That will be the 
best way.” 

“ Flora,” James said, “ Good gracious, 
what an evening ! And oh dear, wasn’t 
it fun, that is if they really aren’t hurt.” 

“ Good night,” I said. “ And oh 
James, isn’t she lovely ! ” 

“ She is,” James said. “ She certainly 
is a peach.” 


194 


THE STORM 


I could only think all this while how 
lovely she was. She sat quite quietly 
with her hands dropped in her lap. I 
think that now that she knew that help 
was on its way fast to her uncle, and that 
she had done all she could for him, 
that she was very nearly unconscious from 
fatigue. She did obediently whatever 
Maggie told her. Her collar was a 
little open, showing her white throat. 
Her hair was piled, all wet and dripping 
still, on her small head. Her eyes 
were dark and soft and very bright. 
She was quite white with tiredness, but 
afterwards had color, as we found, like 
a dark rose. Her eyelashes were long 
and curled up prettily, and were still 
bright with raindrops. 

Maggie made her take off her dripping 
things, and rubbed her long hair with a 
towel which had kept dry. It was as 
thick as thick. 

“ Lie down on the table now, the both 
195 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


of you/’ she said, making it soft as she 
could with shawls and rugs. “ Thanks 
be, it’s dry.” 

The Fairy Lady shook her head, and 
wanted to make Maggie sleep on the 
table herself, and sit up in her place on 
a sort of bench there was in the tent, but 
Maggie would not hear of it, and was 
very short with me when I tried to curl 
up on the little bench myself. 

“ Young ladies are young ladies,” was 
all she would say. She said she would 
be perfectly comfortable on the bench 
in her own way, and that we were to be 
good bairns, and do as we were bid. 

The young guest thanked her most 
prettily, though her words stumbled with 
tiredness, and being as I said worn out, 
she lay down, while Maggie made things 
soft and warm around her, and in a 
minute she was asleep like a child. 

“ Worn out, the pretty lamb,” Maggie 
said as she put out the light. “ Look at 
196 


THE STORM 


the dark shadows yonder under her 
eyes.” 

I could not go to sleep for a good while, 
though dear Maggie had made me comfort- 
able as she could. The rain had stopped 
now, and the late three-quarters moon 
had come out full. The wind had stopped 
too, and there was only the drip, drip from 
the dripping leaves, and all the soft 
soaking noises of the woods after such a 
great rain. It seemed very silent after 
all the sounds of storm which we had 
heard so long, and the moonlight very 
white and blank and still. I lay awake 
a good while, I suppose from being on a 
table, but what my head was full of was 
the cold moonlight and how wonderful 
it was to have the Fairy Lady sleeping 
there beside me. 


197 


CHAPTER XVI 

THE OTHER CAMPERS 

It was two days before Jerry and Mr. 
Sawyers came back, or at least be- 
fore they stopped coming and going, 
and all that time the little fairy lady 
slept and slept. She never knew when 
Tom carried her in and laid her down 
on the new soft balsam bed which had 
been made for her beside mine, and I had 
the fun of having her there beside me, 
while she knew nothing about it, but only 
slept softly like the Sleeping Beauty. 

“ Let her sleep 99 Mr. Charles said — 
as I have said, he partly is a doctor. 
“ She is sleeping off the strain and 
the fatigue. It would have used up a 
198 


THE OTHER CAMPERS 


strong man to get through here to us in 
such a storm.” 

She half woke up when Maggie gave 
her broth, only to go to sleep again with 
a contented sigh, and it was not till the 
second day that she woke really, and just 
as the look of trouble and fright came into 
her eyes, she heard her uncle’s voice 
speaking to her outside. He said : 

“ Wherever has the Little Sister got to ? ” 

We liked him from the first minute, 
and very soon we loved him. His name 
was Mr. Lewis Middleton, and Mr. 
Charles seemed to know all about him, 
and said he was a very distinguished 
botanist. He was very dreamy and 
quiet, and seemed to enjoy everything, 
and he was courteous and gentle, and 
very absent-minded. His leg had been 
broken in the landslide (that, wonderfully, 
was the only injury which happened), 
and he did not mind at all, but smiled 
and said he could work all the more at 
199 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


his microscope. Jerry said the pain of 
being dragged on a roughly made sledge 
over eight miles of forest trail must have 
been horrible (“ fierce ” was what Jerry 
said), but that he was “ observin’ nature 
clear the whole of the way, and never so 
much as noticed his leg was hurtin’, only 
to thank us for every step of the road 
here, and no need. He don’t weigh nothin’ 
at all, a man learned and thin as he is.” 

Mr. Charles set his leg most beautifully, 
and shortened his own crutches so that 
Mr. Middleton could use them, (for as I 
said, he did not need them any more 
himself), but Mr. Middleton did not use 
them very much either, for he stayed 
most of the time in the dining-room tent, 
working contentedly at his flowers and 
microscope, and the Fairy Lady brought 
him fresh water and moss to keep the 
different flowers in, and painted most 
beautiful sketches of the flowers, be- 
sides his pressing them. 

200 


THE OTHER CAMPERS 


Her name was Miss Elizabeth Middle- 
ton, but it was not long before we were 
all calling her the Little Sister, just as 
her uncle did. It seemed the nicest name 
for her to have. 

The guides were funny people. They 
had been stunned, like Mr. Middleton, 
but not really hurt, though one of them, 
Pingree, groaned and looked very sad 
whenever he thought any one was look- 
ing. Jerry, though, said that it was en- 
tirely humbug. 

“ Great fat long-legged fellar, eats like 
a horse, and sleeps like a crocodile.” 

(“ Do crocodiles sleep very well ? ” I 
asked, though Jerry always laughs at me 
for being literal.) 

“ Crocodiles sleep? Well, I should 
think they did. And not a pillow those 
poor creatures don’t have, nothing 
but bolsters. Why I knew a crocodile 
once — ” but just then Maggie called to 
him to put on dinner. 

201 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


The other guide, Francis, was a fat 
jolly person. He had little pig eyes and 
was extremely greedy. He thought Jerry 
was the most wonderful cook he ever 
had seen, and spent most of the day 
helping or watching him cook. He would 
stir and beat Jerry’s flapjack batter by 
the hour, and croon and hum to himself 
as he was stirring it. 

“ That fellar,” Jerry said, “ would 
beat the Dutch. Why he can eat all 
day, till I admire him. He tucks right 
in on everything I cook. I guess he eats 
all night, right in his sleep, but there, it 
nourishes him so good he might as well 
keep on.” 

Francis also admired Mr. Sawyers. 
In fact he looked up to and admired him 
extremely. He said he was a “ ver’, ver’ 
beautiful man,” and followed him round 
whenever he got a chance, though all I 
could ever make out that Mr. Sawyers said 
to him was “ Huh ! ” And as for beautiful ! 

202 


THE OTHER CAMPERS 


Pingree did not stay. He said he 
thought he was “ broke up inside,” and 
perhaps he was, though I hope not I am 
sure, and he certainly did eat very well. 
He went with Tom and the mail as far 
as the Forks, and from there got a boat, 
and then another, and so “ Back to Hen- 
town, which is where he came from,” as 
Jerry said, which was unkind if the poor 
man really was hurt. Francis though, 
thought very much the same. 

“ Pingree he lazy man, ver’ fat, ver’ 
lazy,” big Francis said, crooning and 
rolling himself back and forth on a big 
log and staring at the fire, with one of 
Jerry’s doughnuts in each hand. 


203 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE LITTLE SISTER IN CAMP 

So they all came to live with us in 
camp, to stay at least till Mr. Middle- 
ton’s leg was well again and strong, and 
though you would not have thought that 
camp could be nicer than it had been, 
it was, and the most wonderful part was 
having the Little Sister. 

She was the loveliest person that I ever 
saw, and we had her right in camp. It 
was like having a new precious and 
delightful thing all of our own, as if we 
had caught a nest of sunbeams and had 
them shining all about the camp. 

In the mornings I woke up (as I have 
said, she slept beside me in another green 
balsam bed), and watched her sleeping, 
204 


THE LITTLE SISTER IN CAMP 


with her soft hair around her, and then 
presently she would wake up too, and 
laugh across at me, and stretch out 
her pretty hands into the sunbeams 
shining into our tent. She was as full of 
fun as a squirrel, and could climb nearly 
as well as one, when nobody was looking, 
and she ran as lightly as if there were 
wings on her feet. She never wore her 
Rosalind clothes after she came to us, 
but had pretty green or plaid frocks, 
which fitted into the woods, and always a 
bit of scarlet, like Mamma and me. 

Maggie loved her. She helped her with 
her clothes, and wanted to “ do for her ” 
entirely as she did for me (all except 
darning my stockings !), and the Little 
Sister was so prettily touched and pleased 
at her liking her, and did sometimes 
bring her little bits of mending, though 
she sewed quickly and daintily her- 
self. 

Maggie always came into her tent at 
205 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

night to do her hair. It fell about her 
shoulders and almost to her knees, and 
was extremely soft and fine and thick. 

“ It is a mantle to you,” said Maggie, 
“ like the saints of old.” 

As I have said, she drew and painted 
flowers for her uncle, and also every kind 
of thing she loved. This was what she did 
often when she was off by herself in the 
forest, but mostly I think she was just 
looking and looking, running and sing- 
ing. She sketched without thinking about 
it, and at any time of day. She would 
say, “ Oh, I must have that,” if it was 
a branch of green against a young birch 
stem, a bed of ferns, the tree trunks black 
and wet after a rain, or a line of ducks 
in the pale sunset coming down the lake, 
and she would sit right down where she 
was, one hand on the ground and the 
other with her pencil, and begin to draw. 
She did not notice whether we were all 
round her or not. 


206 


THE LITTLE SISTER IN CAMP 

“ She makes a picter , every time, that’s 
right enough,” Jerry said. 

Sometimes she was a little shy, I 
think. She sat very quiet in the lovely 
evenings, sometimes knitting, but more 
often with her hands in her lap, looking 
into the fire or into the dark woods around, 
while the firelight danced on her face 
and her soft hair. 

The fire was huge and bright now in 
the evenings, for it was beginning to be 
the middle of August, and the nights were 
cold. We sat around the fire, Maggie 
with her knitting, and I with my basket 
work. James had his carving, or his 
rifle to polish, and once he started to 
make what he called a “ buzeenus,” an 
open wooden box with a ball carved 
inside, only it broke. 

Mr. Charles often sat watching the 
Little Sister, but not as if he noticed her 
particularly, and Mr. Middleton watched 
and listened to us all, and sometimes 
207 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


told pleasant stories. He was mostly 
silent though, smoking and looking up 
into the trees, quietly and serenely ; 
unless we did charades or little plays, 
and then you never would believe he 
could act so, and be so funny. He acted 
Bottom and all the clowns together, and 
said: 

“ Pray, Masters ! Fly, Masters ! ” 

So that we nearly died of laughing. 
We never knew when he was going to 
do it ; he would be sitting perfectly 
quiet, then suddenly say : 

“ Ha, dogs ! ” 

And do a scene between Saladin and 
the Templar, or break out into Macbeth, 
till Maggie cried, “ Lord save us ! ” ; 
and then the minute we stopped he would 
take up his cigar again, and sit peacefully 
without a word for the rest of the evening. 

The Little Sister loved the early morn- 
ing, and was up with the birds, and it was 
then we had our swims together. It was 
208 


THE LITTLE SISTER IN CAMP 


so beautiful, with the shafts of early sun- 
light falling down over the trees, and 
she seemed very like the early morning 
herself, lovely and bright and fresh. 

“ Flora,” she said, as we were going 
down one morning with our white towel 
wrappers over our bathing suits, “ you 
know I believe that everything really is 
like this inside ! ” 

“ What do you mean ? ” I said. 

“ Everything suffering and wrong,” she 
said. “ You don’t know, but I do. You 
see I have lived in New York with my 
other uncle, Uncle Sam, who is a doctor, 
and he sees the very poor. It’s like some 
kind of quicksand, or a swamp, they 
can’t even think cleanly. But I believe it 
really is like this, all clear and clean 
inside, everything , even the cities, and 
everything suffering and bad. I believe 
this is the real thing underneath.” 

She stood for a minute with her head 
thrown back, breathing the cold sweet 
209 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


air and the white mist, which was melting 
up in sunshine all around us; then: 

“ Oh ! ” she suddenly said, “ How 
cold it is ! ” and stepped down to the 
ledge, to where it went off deep and 
clear, and dove. 

Sometimes she would say that she 
must take to the woods, and then as I 
have said she would be gone all day, 
running and climbing and singing through 
the forest. She never said where she had 
been or what she had been doing, but 
she seemed then like some young wild 
creature, a young bird, or deer, or fawn. 

Not when any one was sick or hurt, 
though ! Then she was as practical as 
Maggie or Mamma. 

One night Maggie was ill, from having 
caught a cold, and I waked hearing her 
groaning to herself, and crept softly 
out of bed and into her tent. There 
was a lantern lighted, and the Little Sister 
in a scarlet wrapper, like Mamma’s, with 
210 


THE LITTLE SISTER IN CAMP 


long scarlet tails dangling, and furry 
slippers, was leaning over her, holding 
out a cup of something hot and steaming. 

“ Do take it, Maggie, please/’ she said. 
“ I made it myself here on my little lamp. 
Just take it while it’s all hot and steaming, 
that’s a dear. Think how you would 
make us take it, if it was me or Flora ! ” 

Poor Maggie sat up and drank it, 
groaning and coughing, and then lay 
down, and the Little Sister tucked a 
warm shawl round her shoulders. Then 
she shook her long hair back, and set 
some more water to heat over her alcohol 
lamp. It was a little silver folding lamp, 
and she had a pretty bright aluminum 
saucepan to go with it. Soon the water 
steamed and tinkled and bubbled, and 
she filled a nice soft red comfortable 
hot-water bottle. She wrapped it in a 
clean towel, and gave it to Maggie, 
and presently, in the warm light tent, 
Maggie began to grow comfortable, and 
211 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

then to doze, and the Little Sister and 
I sat still watching her. 

Soon Maggie went fast asleep, so fast 
that she gave comfortable snores. The 
Little Sister went softly and leaned over 
her. 

“ I think she’s all right now,” she 
whispered. “ I think she’ll sleep, dear 
Maggie, till breakfast time, and wake 
up feeling almost well again.” 

She stood a little while longer, and 
then, Maggie sleeping perfectly soundly 
and steadily, gave me a kiss, and we 
crept back to our tent. 

“ I’ve crawled in under my bottom 
blanket, by mistake,” she whispered 
presently, “ but never mind, the fir feels 
so delicious, and not sticky.” And in 
a moment we were both sound asleep. 


212 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL AND DUCK POND 

It was a wonderful morning when we 
started for Duck Pond. It was all 
sparkling and still and clear. The two 
tall mountains, black in the morning 
light, ran up high into the blue sky to 
the east, and the lake was like a still 
jewel, with the shadows of the tall woods 
round its edge. Everything was fresh 
and cold with dew, and you felt as if you 
could run and climb for miles, and like 
climbing right up to the top of everything. 

Only Jerry went with us, and we were 
to spend the night; and Mr. Charles 
and Mr. Middleton (we now called him 
Uncle Lewis too) said they were going 
213 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


to make sand forts on the beach, and 
catch horn-pout and eels till we came 
back. 

It was Jerry’s plan. He was always 
making plans, and he had always wanted 
very much to have us go to Duck Pond. 
He said the only real trout fishing in the 
world was in Duck Pond — “ The rest 
is diggin’ clams beside it.” 

We all had bright new tin cups at our 
belts, and I, as well as James and Jerry, 
had my hunting knife. We all wore brown 
fringed moccassins, alike, and for once 
Maggie was sensible, and let me wear 
my dark blue knickerbockers and my 
dark blue jersey. 

“ As ye’re to clamber the wild woods 
like a catamount, I suppose it’s fitting 
ye should be dressed as such, and a young 
lady’s skirts were never made to be 
destroyed.” 

As for my hair (neither Mamma nor 
Maggie will let me cut it off), she parted 
214 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


it and braided in two very tight long 
thick braids, and tied it with both tapes 
and ribbon, and said she hoped I would 
remember how a lady should look. 

We started up the trail like a file of 
Indians. The early morning sunlight was 
slanting across the high woods, and the 
lake was lying still and sound asleep, 
with little curls of mist between the bars 
of sunlight. The leaves smelled sweet 
and wet, and sent up wet sweet breaths 
as we stirred through them. 

All the first part was easy. There 
were soft leaves and leaf mould underfoot, 
and little delicate ferns. The sunbeams 
flickered through the green leaves far 
above, and caught on James’s rifle, 
shining among the trees. Little wood- 
ways opened up on every side, leading 
to fresh delightfulness of leafy under- 
growth, and it was like going through 
Robin Hood’s woods in the early morning. 
When we saw the first gentle pretty deer 
215 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


tripping down a little green glade, and 
stopping to look back over their shoulders, 
it almost seemed as if it was Sherwood 
Forest. The Little Sister thought so too, 
and soon we played it. Mr. Charles was 
Robin Hood, at home in camp, and 
James was Little John, and if lie keeps 
on getting tall so fast he will soon be 
right for it. The Little Sister said she 
should be Will Scarlet, he had such pretty 
clothes, which made us laugh at her, and 
when we explained to Jerry about Friar 
Tuck, he said that that would suit him 
to the ground. That left me for Will 
Stutely, whom I love best of all, he was 
so faithful. 

Jerry made fun of me about my hunting 
knife. 

“ My, but it’s big,” he said. “ I tell 
ye, if I was a bear now, I should be scared ! 
Takes a strong girl to carry a knife like 
tha. I tell you it’s heavy ! I don’t know, 
though, but I could rig a little log-sledge, 
216 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


fit to hold it, and Jim and me could carry 
it together for ye, easy ! ” 

Never mind though, my knife was 
very useful. 

For a mile and a half it was all 
like the trails we knew so well, beautiful 
sunny woods. After the fork of the 
road, though, where the old trail turns 
to the south, and the Duck Pond 
trail keeps on and down to the east, the 
work began. The path went gradually 
down and down and down, till we were 
in deep rich heavy almost tropic woods, 
waist-deep in ferns. 

“ But, Jerry ! ” the Little Sister said, 
pushing her way along, “ This isn’t 
walking, it’s swimming ! ” 

The tree trunks were like great columns 
as you looked up them, and I am sure the 
sunlight never came through the thick 
green above, but the woods had their 
own warm rich climate, like a green- 
house. 


217 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Underfoot was deep moist moss and 
ferns, but you could not tell what you 
were stepping on, for you were climbing 
and scrambling wherever you could 
get through, over great fallen trees 
grown deep with moss, in between twisted 
roots, and through the tall cinnamon 
and ostrich ferns, where sometimes only 
the shaking tops showed where you were. 

“ This is warm,” Jerry said, standing 
out on a mossy log to mop his face. 

We certainly looked like Indians by 
now. We were as red as red. The air, 
as I have said, was heavy in the 
woods, and we were out of breath, and 
our faces and hands were covered with 
moss and bark. 

James went ahead without talking 
much, as usual, making a way for us 
through the heavy ferns and helping us 
over rocks and fallen trees. 

“ Jerry ! ” the Little Sister said, as he 
swung her up from between two tall mossy 
218 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


rocks where she had slipped, and set her 
on the top of one to cool off. 

“ I believe this wood we’re in is magic! 
I believe we are bewitched and shall go 
wandering round till all of us have long 
gray hair and beards ! ” 

She put her hair back from her face 
and sat there out of breath, but her 
hair had not got untidy, it only curled 
more softly round her face. 

“ This party of mine,” Jerry said, 
“ has got to take its noontime nap, or 
si-esta. Jim, you give a hand here to 
young lady, and help her through the 
rest of this gardin’ grass, while I take 
Missy up.” And before I could speak, 
he swung me up on his shoulder. 

“ Jerry ! ” I cried. “ But I am much 
too heavy ! ” 

“ That’s what you are!” he said, “ as 
heavy as a yeast-cake. Feel myself 
risin’ up, like biscuit dough ! ” 

We went on a little farther, when 
219 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Jerry stopped and looked around him, 
nodded, and then turned to the right 
for a few yards, and down in the ferns 
there was a little spring. There it 
lay, all dark like a Scotch cairngorm, 
so clear that you could hardly believe 
it was real, and fringed with ferns. It 
did not bubble, but dimpled softly all 
over, and a tiny stream flowed quietly 
away among the ferns, crowded with 
grateful moss. 

It was the sweetest water I have ever 
drunk, cold and delicious. We took long 
draughts in turn, and put our faces in, 
and then Jerry and James left the Little 
Sister and me to rest by it. 

“ Oh, Flora ! ” she said, “ was ever 
water so nice ! And now I think we 
ought to curl up and take a nap here 
in the ferns. ,, 

After awhile Jerry and James came 
back, and Jerry had had a nap too, as 
his doctors strictly recommended it, he 
220 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


said, and we had luncheon, bread and 
dates and cold venison and chocolate, 
extremely thankfully around the little 
spring. 

After we started out again the trail 
swung to the south. 

“ A-ah ” the Little Sister said, draw- 
ing her breath, “ it’s getting easier ! ” 

It was, and we went more and more 
lightly upwards and upwards till we found 
ourselves in delicious beech wood openings 
with dry gray crunching lichens underfoot 
and lady’s slipper leaves and seed-vessels, 
climbing up one of the lower spurs of 
Ega. Rocks cropped out, covered with 
lichens too along the ridge, and the long 
spur fell away below our feet. 

At last we were high enough to see out 
above the trees, when James, who was 
ahead, called out: 

“ Look down ! Look down ! ” 

And there, far below us, was the little 
pond. 


221 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


I never can forget the way it looked. In 
the first place, we were nearer to the first 
of the twin mountains, Ega, than I had 
ever thought I should be. We actually 
were on it. I had always thought of it 
as far away, a distant splendid thing to 
look at, and there it was right above us, 
height after height. It was so huge and 
high it seemed to look down over us as 
if it were some great towering creature or 
person. 

And far below us was the little pond. 
It nestled at the foot of the tall mountains, 
in a wide belt of heavy black impenetrable 
spruce, which looked like a black band 
between the two forest ridges shutting 
in the valley. 

It was to avoid this black close 
spruce growth that Jerry had taken us 
up over the spur of the mountain. We 
had though to go through part of it, 
and it was the most scratch-face place I 
ever saw. We forced our way down through 
222 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


it with our eyes shut (after swinging our- 
selves and almost dropping from tree to 
tree down the steep slope of open wood 
above it), and our hands and faces were all 
little sharp red scratches and our hair was 
full of bits of stick and twigs, and pulled 
and tweaked in every direction. 

The pond was like a tiny lake, all quite 
complete, when we burst finally out of 
the last stretch of spruce woods, and a 
light breath stirred across it, cooling our 
hot faces. There it lay quiet and smiling 
in the sun. There was a little white 
beach, hard and firm. There were two 
rocky points opposite each other, and a 
cat- tail swamp, rustling and mysterious. 
Close to us was an open marsh, a frog- 
swamp, thick with sphagnum and sweet- 
gale and blueberry bushes, where deer 
were munching as we came along. 

Jerry and James began fishing im- 
mediately, while the Little Sister and I 
explored along the shore. 

223 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

All Jerry said was true about the fishing. 
The water really was alive with trout. 
James had his rod together and was out 
on a point of rock and fishing, all in a 
minute, and the water dimpled and 
gurgled in a dozen flashes every time he 
cast. He and Jerry fished and fished, but 
Jerry fished with nothing but a feather 
on the end of his line, no hook. He 
said that James was getting all we could 
carry home, and more was a sin; that it 
injured their complexion to be handled, 
and their health to be long out of water, 
that in this way he got the pure art of 
the thing, and he chuckled and chuckled 
as the trout gobbled and fought after 
his empty line. 

The afternoon came early behind the 
mountains, and it was then that the little 
pond began to be mysterious, that we 
realized how far in the heart of the 
great woods we were. The shadow fell 
across it, and the coolness of night came 
224 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


early on. The great twin peak above 
us changed gradually and wonderfully. 
It was as if veil after veil of dark soft 
purple fell across them, deepening every 
hollow and ravine, till at last they towered 
up soft black, with a pale yellow light 
that showed behind them, and the pond 
reflected the blackness and the pale light 
both. 

Our fire blazed up with a cheerful 
roar of sparks. We had our trout for 
supper, cooked on the coals, and Jerry 
sang us different funny ballads, and the 
Canada jays flew down as soon as they 
saw us, and stayed until after their 
bedtime. 

Ours came nearly as early. We sud- 
denly were hardly able to move. I 
really think I never have been so sleepy. 
The Little Sister and I went down to 
wash our faces and hands, and there by 
the water we woke up again for a 
minute. The point shut off the light of 
225 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


our fire. It was perfectly still. The 
dark woods were close around the little 
pond and a gray trail of stars fell into 
it. You could not see the mountains, 
but you felt them. 

“ Flora, how sweet the water is ! ” 
the Little Sister said as she knelt and 
put her face down into it. 

I slept in a hollow lined with pine- 
needles. The little point was all in friendly 
hollows and ledges. The Little Sister 
and I slept on one side of it, Jerry and 
James on the other, and Jerry and 
James filled our nests with balsam-fir 
branches. 

I slept like a bear in winter I believe, 
and then woke up suddenly at midnight. 
The night had changed, I cannot say 
quite how. It was still, still, but different, 
more alive. I lay listening to the won- 
derful living silence, wondering what it 
was that had waked me up. There are 
two different changes in the night. There 
226 



‘ WE STOOD ON THE LITTLE BEACH.” 





















































THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


is another kind of stillness that comes 
just before dawn. 

It was James who had waked me. He had 
touched me very softly on my shoulder. 

“ Flora,” he whispered, “ I oughtn’t 
to wake you up, but come down a minute 
to listen to the stars.” 

He took my hand to help me down 
the rocks. Our fire had sunk to a soft 
glow of coals, and Jerry was asleep on 
the other side of it. 

The stars blazed and were bright in 
the black frosty sky. They were like 
jewels all over it, and the little lake at 
our feet shone full of them. You could 
half make out the two tall mountains, 
running up into the sky, black in the 
starry darkness around them. We stood 
on the firm hard sand of the little beach. 
It was very still, and every breath of 
the night air was clear and cold; and 
then high overhead we heard a little 
still clear sound. 


227 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


Of course it is not really hearing the 
stars, at least I suppose it could not 
possibly be. James does not know what 
it is, and neither do I. You can hear it 
sometimes on the still frosty nights in 
winter, and sometimes on perfectly clear 
northwest nights in summer. It seems 
to come from far, far, and is high up and 
very clear. Perhaps it is frost. 

We heard it twice. 

“ There ! ” James said, and then we 
went back to sleep. 

In the morning we all woke up early, 
I think because of the gray jays flying 
down round us, and we were to start home 
pretty early besides. James had wrapped 
his trout in wet moss, and put them in 
a cool hollow in the rocks so that they 
were as fresh as fresh. 

The sun rose higher, clearing off the last 
mists from the mountains, and soon 
after breakfast we started. It grew warm 
and delicious, and sweet smells came 
228 


THE DUCK POND TRAIL 


from the pretty open swamps. We 
climbed up and up the high steep slope 
of beechwood, and about ten o’clock were 
at the top of the ridge, where we were to 
turn to go down to our own woods. 

I stopped to look back at the little 
pond. There it lay far below us, deep 
and still and clear, the black woods 
mirrored in it, and the blue sky. 


229 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE BULL MOOSE 

“ Children,” Mr. Charles said, looking 
up to where the August moon was showing 
silver through the black trees, “ I am 
going to show you how a moose looks 
when he is really startled. Yes, Maggie, 
I know it’s bedtime. I won’t keep them 
long. We shall forget that we are sleepy 
in a minute. Come, and don’t stumble.” 

He gave the Little Sister his hand to 
help her over a root. 

Uncle Lewis wished us luck, and said 
we should find the button-bush swamps 
and the sweet-rush far more fragrant at 
night, and that he thought plover flew 
higher in moonlight than on dark nights, 
230 


THE BULL MOOSE 


but that we must all be good and come 
home early. 

Out on the lake it was still, solemn 
moonlight, melting away into soft silvery 
haziness. 

“ Oh !” the Little Sister said, drawing 
in her breath and squeezing my hand in 
hers. 

James took the bow of the canoe, and 
Mr. Charles the stern. I sat curled up 
at Mr. Charles’s feet, and the Little Sister 
next me, where the moonlight fell on 
her hair and her white forehead. 

We slipped along under the high black 
shore, and the moon followed through 
the black tree-tops, a piece of living silver. 

Sure enough, button-bush and sweet- 
rush are sweeter far at night. We felt 
their breath as we slipped past the 
swamps. 

Nobody spoke, only when James said 
softly : 

“ Rock, Mr. Charles, a little way to 
231 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


the left,” and the moonlight showed a 
sharp black nose of rock. 

Soft rivers of white fog rolled from the 
mouths of the streams, and it was shivery 
when we passed through one with a 
gentle ghostly rustling through the reeds. 
The fog was soft and cold. We could 
hardly see the opposite shore or the 
islands, for curtains of silvery mist were 
round them and kept them half hidden. 
The lake might have been inside a great 
pearl or an opal. There were no loons 
out, but sure enough, high overhead we 
heard the call of plover. (You never 
can see them. You hear them over 
your head, right between you and the 
stars, and you lie on your back in a 
canoe, watching and watching, but 
though they will whistle in answer if 
you whistle, you never can see them.) 

Beyond the third point the lake runs 
up into the long deep narrow Ega Bay, 
and we turned into it. At the very 
232 


THE BULL MOOSE 


head of it is shallow water with lily-pads, 
and I felt that it was here that we should 
find the moose. Sure enough Mr. Charles 
whispered : 

“ Don’t lift your paddle now James, 
slip it along,” and we slipped on without 
a breath or a sound, till we came nearer 
and nearer to the lily-pads. Mr. Charles 
lifted his paddle out with hardly a drop, 
and we floated on, with I think none of 
us breathing. The canoe brought up 
against a stretch of reeds, and there 
was a splashing and a snorting cough, 
and there, so near that I almost jumped 
with surprise, was the great beast himself. 
The air — you could not call it wind — 
was towards us and away from him, and 
he had no idea that we were there at all. 
He fed steadily, snorting and nozzling his 
nose down into the water, pulling up 
clumps of water-lily roots, and the smell 
came to us, like queer damp pineapple 
smell. He munched and munched, and 
233 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


every little while he changed his feet and 
coughed. 

He looked like a giant beast, he was so 
big. His antlers were partly grown and 
in the velvet. I don’t suppose he was as 
big as an elephant, but really he almost 
looked it. He was enormously tall, with 
a great heavy head and a black bell 
under his chin. The moon shone sud- 
denly on something bright at my feet, 
and I saw that Mr. Charles had his 
rifle in the canoe beside him. 

We waited, and I don’t think that we 
as much as breathed while we stayed 
watching him. At last the Little Sister 
gave a sudden shiver. Mr. Charles drew 
out his paddle, and rapped sharply on 
the side of the canoe. The sound startled 
me almost as much as the moose. He 
flung up his antlers, with a great 
startled flounce and snort, and turned 
and scrambled out of the water and 
was gone, with a tremendous crashing 
234 


THE BULL MOOSE 


through the woods. I still sat staring 
after he was gone, I am sure with my 
mouth open. 

“ Are you cold ? 99 Mr. Charles said to 
the Little Sister. “ Put on my coat. It 
was a shabby trick to startle him, — 
my faith, we made him jump ! — but in 
another minute he’d have seen us any- 
how. How still it is ! ” 

It was. You could hardly believe that 
the great beast had been there just be- 
fore. 

Mr. Charles turned and paddled out 
again into the lake, and when we were 
well out stopped and let the canoe float 
quietly, while he struck a match and 
lighted a cigarette. 

The moon was up full now. The whole 
lake seemed to be soft silvery light. It 
stretched far, far, far as the sea, and 
leading away across it was the wake, 
like a wide field of silver wheat. 

“ Half-past nine ! ” Mr. Charles said, 
23 5 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


shutting his watch with a click. 4 4 Maggie 
will shake us well, and we deserve it.” 

It showed how wonderfully Mr. Charles 
had gained, that he could paddle. It 
was weeks since he had had any attack 
of pain at all. He leaned on James’s 
shoulder to get into the canoe, but once 
in, he paddled stronger than Tom himself. 
He limped just as much, and as I have 
said, he limps still, and of course always 
will, but he lifted or swung himself along 
by a branch or a tree, or rock, or any- 
thing, so well you hardly noticed it. 

When the Little Sister and I went down 
to brush our teeth the soft hazy look had 
changed entirely. It had come clear from 
the northwest and was all black and 
silver. The wind was blowing more and 
more strongly, and the waves rising. 
Little rings of fire changed and flashed 
on the black water near in under the 
shore, and out on the lake it had 
changed to a look of molten silver, 
236 


THE BULL MOOSE 

with the moon’s wake a shimmer of white 
fire. 

“ See, Flora ! ” the Little Sister said, 
scattering a shower of bright drops with 
her bare foot. “ Ow, how cold it is ! I 
cannot help it, and it’s mean too, for 
you mustn’t, but I have to go in, for just 
a duck and a swim. Maggie won’t know 
till I am out again.” And she showed 
me that she had her bathing-suit on under 
her scarlet wrapper. 

In she went, with a flash into the moon- 
lit water, but Maggie came just then 
and scolded her thoroughly, and made 
her take hot ginger tea, and go to bed 
with two hot-water bottles. 


237 


CHAPTER XX 


THE FAR - AWAY POND 

It was the next day that we went to 
the Far-Away Pond, at least that we 
started for it. This was the expedition 
which Jerry said did not “ expedish,” 
but it was almost the nicest that we had 
at all. 

It was Jerry of course, as usual, who 
proposed it. He had talked and talked 
about the Far-Away Pond till James and 
the Little Sister and I were quite excited. 

“ Now Jerry, Jerry,” Mr. Charles 
said, “ you have got expeditions on the 
brain. You will be getting up nice 
little trips next to the mountains of 
the moon. Have you ever been to this 
pond at all ? ” 


238 


THE FAR-AWAY POND 


No, Jerry had never been to it, but he 
knew the stream which he was certain 
flowed out of it, and the pond grew nicer 
every time he talked about it; and I 
never could tell afterwards whether he 
really had believed in it or not. 

“ The nicest little place,” he would say, 
“ There, it’s beautiful. And being so re- 
tired, in the woods, it’s come to be head- 
quarters for things rare and valuable.” 
Why, everything nice grew there, he 
didn’t know but turnips, and as for 
white blackbirds and wild-strawberry 
birds, they nested there “ regular as the 
first of April.” (Wild-strawberry birds 
were Jerry’s favorite bird to talk about, 
and I am ashamed to say I spent 
a long time hunting for their nests. 
He said that they were shaped just like 
little round tomatoes, with red and white 
spotted feathers ; they tasted and smelled 
just like wild strawberries, and very few 
people knew anything about them.) 

239 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Trout ? ” Mr. Charles said, and Jerry 
said they were so thick you could put 
down your rocking-chair and rock on 
them. 

It was a still warm hazy summer day, 
with the lake looking wide as the sea, 
when we set out together. Jerry and I 
were in one canoe, Mr. Sawyers and 
Mr. Middleton in another, and Mr. 
Charles and James paddled the Little 
Sister in the third. Tom and Maggie 
were at home minding the camp, as 
Maggie had a toothache. 

The stream was at the very head of 
the lake at the northwest bay. We 
passed all the way close under the wooded 
shore, or through the lovely channels 
between the islands. We saw schools 
and schools of little fish. Two eagles 
were soaring and fishing in the sun, and 
against the dark woods of an island we 
saw a lonely gull flying, and wondered 
how ever he came there. 

240 


THE FAR-AWAY POND 


It was four miles’ paddle to the head of 
the lake. The mouth of the stream was 
hidden in tall-growing rushes. You never 
would have guessed that it was there till 
you pushed through the reeds, and came 
out suddenly on its clear dark windings. 

We were the first explorers, so far 
as we knew. The stream wound and 
wound through a wide stretch of feathery 
grasses, which reached up in a close 
wall over our heads, and we slipped 
quietly between them. The grasses were 
thick with every kind of lovely flower, — 
meadow rue, smelling sweet and moist, 
and cardinal flower, orchises, purple 
and white, — and they were bright with 
butterflies. Duck got up with a whirr, 
and teal and loons. The tall grasses 
stretched away, a sea of marsh, and it 
was a most sunshiny place, all wild and 
lonely and happy. 

“ Dear me, look, everybody, at that 
string of turtles,” Mr. Charles said. 

241 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Eleven, twelve, thirteen, on one log. 
Now that is a sight.” 

They were all on a black log as we 
glided by, sticking their foolish heads 
up in the sun, with the heat shining on 
their black and yellow backs. Mr. 
Charles waved his hand, and they all 
went off with a startled “ plop ” as we 
passed by. 

We wound through this great marsh 
for at least an hour, till suddenly, like a 
door, we entered the tall shadow of the 
woods. Here it was different, solemn and 
beautiful, and we followed one still forest 
reach after another, like green cloisters, 
the woods so tall and deep that the sun- 
light only reached through in twinkles 
and flashes. 

“ Oh ! ” the Little Sister said, and I 
don’t think any of us spoke for mile after 
mile ; till Mr. Charles asked the Little Sister 
if she would mind singing, and she sang 
one song after another in her clear voice. 

242 


THE FAR-AWAY POND 


“ My, but it’s clear,” said Jerry in our 
canoe, “ she sings like the birds in the 
morning.” 

“ Now Jerry sing,” the Little Sister 
called across, and Jerry said this singing 
out-of-doors was bad for the voice — 
“ Adelina Patty never does it,” — and 
sang us the funniest ballad, beginning 

“ Last Friday night the wind was east, 
Tittery Nan turn Tary oh ! 

We had a husking in the West — 

Fairy Nay, Tory No, 

Tittery Nan turn Tary oh ! 

“ And old Joe Dinzey, he was there, — ” 

But just then our canoe slid quietly on 
to a rock. 

“ There,” Jerry said as he got out to 
lift her off. “ This is what comes of be- 
ing led off by the Muses.” 

We had luncheon where a great rock 
runs out at a turn of the stream, and 
every one told stories afterwards, every 
243 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


one, that is, but Mr. Sawyers, who of 
course did not say anything. The water 
flowed by, clear as a topaz, over clean 
bright pebbles, and on the farther side of 
the rock was a deep pool with moss- 
grown rocks and logs, and ferns bending 
over, where fairies might go in swimming. 

Jerry went in, though he was not a 
fairy. He sat on the top of the rock 
eating his lunch, and reaching too far 
for a doughnut, fell in with a tremendous 
splash. 

“ There,” he said calmly, wading out 
with water running off him in little rivers 
all over, “that comes of having a too 
lofty nature. I vaulted up there to that 
there pebble, and you know what Shake- 
speare says : 

Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself 
And falls in splash/ ” 

After luncheon Jerry climbed a tree, 
to “dry his flowing raven locks” (his 
244 





“ HE FELL IN WITH A MOST TREMENDOUS SPLASH 




































































































































































































THE FAR-AWAY POND 


hair is red), but really it was to look 
for his Far-Away Pond. A little way 
farther on he climbed another, on the 
other side of the stream, and James 
climbed one too, but said there was noth- 
ing but unbroken forest. You could not 
even see the river we were paddling on. 

“ Your pond is living up to its name, 
Jerry,” he said, and Jerry said it did that 
right along. 

After a while we came to what looked 
like a fork in the stream. Jerry scratched 
his head and thought, and said he didn’t 
know but the eastward branch would take 
us quicker, and we turned and paddled 
down it. 

“ Now Jerry,” Mr. Charles said, after 
we had gone a little way, it seemed to 
me into deeper and deeper woods, “ this 
is serious business. Our stream was the 
branch, and this is the main river. It is 
deeper, and the current stronger, and 
what is more, it’s flowing the wrong way. 

245 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


That’s the way it is. That’s what I have to 
pay for my bright, sunny, winnin’ nature.” 

When we came out at last, the sun was 
just going down, lighting the marshes 
with a last flood of gold, and — 

“ Look ! ” James said, and over the 
gray line of bulrushes we saw the great 
round pale moon. 


248 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE BEARS AGAIN 

We were at the sphagnum bog, gather- 
ing pitcher plants, the Little Sister, Mr. 
Charles and I. James was out fishing, 
with a new kind of spinner he had in- 
vented, and Mr. Middleton was away 
botanizing with Tom — his leg had knitted 
now and was nearly strong again — and 
his own French-Canadian man, Francis. 

Maggie was with us, as she hoped to 
find cranberries. The bog was full of 
them, but none of them were really 
ripe yet. We got all kinds of things 
besides our pitcher plants, as we always 
did when we were at the bog, and I 
found a woodpecker’s feather, black, with 
round white spots and one spot of crim- 
249 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


son, dropped on the water at the edge 
of the pond. 

The Little Sister cried out at sight of 
a sprig of scarlet hobble-bush berries, 
and sat right down where she was to 
sketch them. Maggie, with a handker- 
chief over her head, kept hunting for 
any berries that might have turned pink 
a very little. 

It was very still and warm in the sun- 
shine, and smelled as usual of sweet wet 
boggy smells. We had had our luncheon 
and were all, I think, feeling a little 
sleepy. I was stringing bunchberries 
for a necklace and bracelets, and Mr. 
Charles sat on a mossy log, watching 
the Little Sister. He had his shot-gun 
on the log beside him, as Jerry had told 
him we were “ kind of hard up for 
partridges for supper.” 

“ How still it is ! ” the Little Sister 
said, looking up from her painting. “ I 
believe every bird has gone to sleep, and 
250 


THE BEARS AGAIN 


I am sure I heard them singing a moment 
ago. I don’t wonder, it is so comfortable, 
and I suppose they have just had their 
dinner, besides. 

“ There is a lady sweet and kind,” 

she sang to herself, and laughed and sang 
the pretty song all through: 

“ I did but see her passing by, 

“ And yet I love her ! 

" And yet I love her till I die ! ” 


Suddenly through the bushes there 
came a horrible cry. We all jumped to 
our feet without knowing it, and I know 
the way people feel in books when they 
are “ frozen with horror,” and “ rooted 
to the ground.” That was the way I 
stood, stock-still, and listened. It seemed 
as if I could not move at all. “ The 
251 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


scream of a panther ” was all that I could 
think of as we stood there, and I broke 
the string of scarlet berries round my 
neck. 

Then the cry came again, and it had 
come nearer. 

“ A wounded bear,” Mr. Charles said 
quietly, closing his lips a little. “ No 
panther. Wait for a minute.” 

His quick eyes glanced round the little 
clearing, and the cry came again, and it 
was nearer, and it seemed as if we could 
hear crackling and crashing. 

" Ah,” he said, “ now we have it. 
Straight from the east. He smells us on 
this wind. Go behind me, all three of 
you, to that big rock. Keep well behind 
it, don’t look round, and go home 
quietly.” 

I suppose we all three of us cried out a 
little together. 

“ Do as I tell you, please,” Mr. Charles 
said, quietly, but so that there was nothing 
252 


THE BEARS AGAIN 


else to do but go. Only Maggie stayed, 
putting out her hands as if to keep back 
something. 

“ Oh my dear lad,” she said. “ Oh 
no ! not with you lame, and staying here 
your lone ! ” 

“ Maggie,” Mr. Charles said very 
quietly and kindly, “do as I tell you. 
Take the two girls home.” And Maggie 
went. 

“ Oh dear,” I thought, miserably, “ if 
only James was here ! ” And then I was 
glad that he wasn’t. 

While he was speaking Mr. Charles 
had been slipping a cartridge out of his 
gun. He cut at it hard and sharply with 
his knife, and seemed even to work at 
it with his teeth, bending or breaking it 
quickly, and then he slipped it back into 
its place, and sat down with his gun 
across his knee and waited. 

We did not have time to get even as 
far as the rock. The cry came again, 
253 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


horribly nearer, and with a dreadful loud 
crashing and rending of branches. 

“ He smells us ! ” Maggie said, which 
had a horrible sound. The crashing 
seemed to be bursting right out of the 
bushes. 

“ He only has a shot-gun ! ” the Lit- 
tle Sister cried, and let go of my hand. 

Then I don’t know what happened. I 
don’t know if I saw a great mass, dread- 
fully streaked with red, burst through the 
bushes straight toward Mr. Charles, or 
whether I only imagined it. There were 
two quick shots, and a little half-laughing 
cry, and when I opened my eyes Mr. 
Charles was standing leaning a little 
against the rock behind him, his smoking 
gun at his feet; a huge black thing lay 
still almost close to him, and the Little 
Sister was half crouching, half kneeling 
side him, with a sharp stone in her hand. 

“ Yes, Flora dear, the bear is killed 
254 


THE BEARS AGAIN 


and dead,” Mr. Charles said very kindly 
and gently. I did not seem exactly to be 
frightened, but I felt dry and queer, and 
had no voice, and I asked the same 
question over and over again. I did not 
mean to, but I could not seem to stop, 
and I felt that I must ask it very politely. 
I was holding his coat. 

“ And we went away and left you, and 
the Little Sister stayed ! ” 

“ The Little Sister stayed,” Mr. Charles 
said, kissing me. 

He had taken us over to the other side 
of the swamp, entirely out of sight of the 
dead bear, and made me sit on some moss, 
while he went down to the pond to get 
some water. Maggie sat on a stump, 
and was crying a little, while the Little 
Sister was quietly packing the lunch 
basket. Her cheeks were very bright 
and her eyes shining. 

“ There,” Maggie said, wiping her 
eyes. “ And what an old fool, to be sure ! 

255 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


The lad is safe, and the bear is dead, and 
I’d like to know ! And now you are both 
of- ye to take some peppermint.” 

Maggie never goes anywhere without 
peppermint. She says it is good for 
sorrow and joy and sickness, and she got 
it out now in a little fat bottle. She made 
Mr. Charles take it when he came back 
with the water, although he laughed and 
made faces. His hair was dripping with 
water, and I remembered that I had 
seen blood on his neck and cheek. 

“ And that Jerry telling me that bears 
was timid ! ” Maggie said scornfully as 
we were walking home. 

“ But Jerry’s quite right, they gener- 
ally are,” Mr. Charles said. “ It’s not 
once in years one hears of a bear turning 
and attacking people. It is only when 
they are wounded, or else in great hunger. 
Generally they are about as dangerous 
as sheep, and one almost forgets they 
can be anything else. This bear was 
256 


THE BEARS AGAIN 


badly wounded. I heard a shot myself. 
Some one — probably Francis, who 
hasn’t much discretion — shot at and 
wounded him, and in his crazy rage he 
struck our trail.” 

“ Oh please don’t talk about it ! ” 
I could not help saying, and Mr. Charles 
pressed my hand. 

“ How did you do it ? ” James asked, 
with his eyes bright, as we were sitting 
safely round the fire that evening. “ How 
could you kill a bear with nothing but a 
shot-gun, Mr. Charles ? ” 

“ And asked to give away my patent 
explosive invention ! ” Mr. Charles said. 
“ It really was perfectly easy. In the 
first place at such close range as we were,” 
— I squeezed his hand (he had been 
holding me nestled up against him all the 
evening), and he squeezed mine back, — 
46 the whole charge of shot would probably 
have struck him, and have killed him at 
once. But if you want to make perfectly 
257 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


sure in a tight place, cut or break your 
cartridge half in two. Then the shot 
doesn’t scatter, the end of the cartridge 
goes whole like a shell, and it would go 
through a plank wall like blotting paper. 
The only trouble is your gun kicks re- 
belliously. I was a gory mass for several 
minutes, and I think my jaw will be black 
and blue as a Scotch plaid by morning.” 

“ I know now,” James said, “ Jerry 
told me out fishing. He said you could 
blow a hole through a cow with it.” 

Mr. Charles said that just for the 
minute he had thought it was a panther, 
though he had never heard one himself, 
and doubted really whether there were 
any left. Papa thought so too I knew, 
though Jerry always says you never can 
tell. 

In the night the Little Sister woke up 
crying and sobbing, at least she cried in 
her sleep, and I had to shake her softly 
to wake her up. At first she did not know 
258 


THE BEARS AGAIN 


what was the matter, or where she was in 
the least, and then she laughed through 
her tears. 

“ Oh dear ! I am such a goose ! ” she 
said, still laughing and crying, “ I thought 
that I hadn’t been frightened the least in 
the world, and I have been dreaming 
and dreaming of bears and panthers, oh 
and horrible things ! I am coming over 
beside you, Flora, or I shall go on being 
a silly ! ” And she kissed me and we 
went to sleep together. 


259 


CHAPTER XXII 


THE HAPPY END 

“ What is the matter with the Little 
Sister, Maggie ? ” I said. “ These last 
three days, ever since Mr. Charles shot 
the bear, it seems as if I have hardly seen 
her at all. She has been off in the woods, 
it seems to me, all day long, and for two 
evenings she has gone to her tent early, 
to finish a drawing.” 

“ She has been just as she should be,” 
Maggie said, pursing her lips, “ She has 
been just as a young lady should be, 
and where she should be. I dare say 
she would have letters to finish, or other 
affairs,” and Maggie would not say 
anything more. 


260 


THE HAPPY END 


I thought I must be imagining, but 
everything certainly seemed to be queer 
and different. We had been going for a 
picnic to one of the circles of islands, and 
we did not go at all, and there did not 
seem really to be any reason. Mr. 
Charles was busy too, and did not come 
to the fire for a whole evening, but stayed 
talking to Jerry and finishing letters in 
his tent. 

“ What is the matter with every one, 
Jerry,” I said, “ these last two days ? ” 

“ Well now, these bears,” he said, 
“they do seem to have a curious effect 
on the nervous system. Maybe it’s that 
that’s making folks act kind of curious, 
though I don’t know as I’ve noticed. 
Horses, you know, can’t stand a bear, 
not no ways, and it may be, though they 
don’t know it, that it’s the same with 
folks. Brings on a kind of a — com- 
motion — of the whole constitution, or 
maybe constitutions — ” Jerry looked up 
261 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


at me with a little sort of a twinkle. 
“ You never can tell.” 

I said then I certainly hoped we should 
see no more bears, and Jerry said he 
thought too that we’d find one was 
enough. I never suspected at all, but I 
do not think it is the kind of thing you 
can suspect about. It suddenly happens, 
and then you feel as if it must always 
have been so. 

I was getting huckleberries just beyond 
the point. I was quite hidden, I suppose, 
by the tall bushes, and I dropped all my 
berries, I was so startled at hearing voices 
close to me. 

It was Maggie, and she was talking to 
Mr. Charles. I started to speak, to show 
them I was there, but Mr. Charles’s voice 
broke in, so strong and full of trouble, as 
if speaking in pain, that I could not. 

“ But Maggie, how can I ! ” he said. 
“ I’m lame, I am a cripple ! ” 

“ My dear lad,” Maggie said gravely 
262 


THE HAPPY END 


and solemnly, “ my dear lad, my dear 
Charles,” — and I could feel sure that 
she put her hand on his, — “ what is that 
to a young maid, if it is her man ? What 
difference does it make, maimed, halt, or 
blind, and what’s to make up to her, 
wanting that, for her whole life? If it’s 
her man, I say, it is her man ; and if it’s 
not, ye might as well try to hold the 
clouds in the sky. Ask her; it is her 
right. 

“ And as for useless ” she said, “ ask 
them that know ye. When was a good 
servant hindered by halting steps? It’s 
my belief that the works ye are to do, 
gravely and in the Lord’s sight, for the 
good of many, are not yet counted ; and 
that it is to be together, man and wife, 
as the good Lord intended.” 

I know I ought to have spoken. I had 
no right to hear a single word, but how 
could I make a great noise and crackling, 
right at their feet ? But just as I was try- 
263 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


ing in a great hurry to crawl away, 
Mr. Charles said: 

“ God bless you, Maggie. I shall 
ask her to-day,” and they walked away 
together. 

I could think of nothing better to do 
than to pick up my berries, which I did 
with such hot and startled clumsy fingers 
that I dropped half of them at least all 
over again. I thought I had better stay 
and pick my bowl full, and when it was 
picked I went on, still with a hot face, to 
the Second Beach. 

When I got there I came out plump 
upon the Little Sister. I gave a little gasp 
and stepped back noiselessly. I had not 
come out through the bushes, so she did not 
see me, thank goodness. She was sitting 
on the beach, with the morning sun on 
her hair, looking so pretty, so pretty. 
She had one hand on the ground, the 
way she liked to sit, but she was not 
drawing or painting. Her pencil had 
264 


THE HAPPY END 


dropped on the sand and her piece of 
paper had nothing on it at all. 

I was just turning to go softly back 
through the bushes when I heard steps, 
quick steps, though halting, Mr. Charles’s, 
and heard his voice in a tone I had never 
heard before, as if something were his, 
and he had claimed it. 

“ Elizabeth ! ” he said. “ Elizabeth ! ” 
This time there was no question at all 
of what I must do, and I lay down per- 
fectly flat in the bushes, with my fingers 
stuffed in my ears. 

“ Maggie was perfectly right,” James 
said afterwards on the roof of his hut, 
“ and there was a lady here in the woods 
after all, and he found her, and I do think 
it was wonderful. Now you have hooked 
those fish-hooks into your skirt.” 

I had not thought about the hooks at 
all. I could only think of the great house 
in Boston, and of Mr. Charles lying there 
265 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


so white and ill. 44 Fretting away in 
suffering and bitterness,” was what kind 
Mrs. Carey had said. No one could ever 
say it now any more. 

44 Flora, darling,” the Little Sister 
whispered to me that night in the tent, 
4 4 I am so happy ! It is so very wonder- 
ful ! ” 

She knelt beside me with her cheek 
turned away, and her face quite hidden 
in the sweet green fir. 44 It is so very 
wonderful ! ” she whispered again, softly. 

44 Flora — it seems — the sunrise — 
the moonlight — the great woods — it 
does seem as if this were a part of their 
meaning. It sounds selfish. Of course 
they are themselves, bigger, more huge, 
more wonderful than we can know; but 
it does seem as if they partly meant this, 
too — ” 

I had cried a little, it was so beautiful, 
so lovely ; and the Little Sister cried too, 
happy tears, and laid her cheek a minute 
266 


THE HAPPY END 


against mine, and then kissed me, and 
crept softly into bed. 

How our kaleidoscope was turning 
and turning! And I don’t believe any 
other one ever turned so beautifully, or 
had such bright colors. 

Tom went with the mail in the morning, 
and the next day he came back with the 
letters, and they were all coming directly. 
Papa, Mamma, and Billy ! They had 
not written before because it might not 
be certain, and now the letters had been 
delayed by a rise of the stream at the 
Forks, and they were coming that eve- 
ning ! 

“ Billy is quite well,” Mamma wrote. 
“ Thin of course, and white, but eating 
like a young polar bear or grizzly, and 
Jerry will have to allow I should think a 
barrel of flapjacks. But just wait till he 
has been in camp a week and watch him 
grow fat.” 

How we flew about ! 

267 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Like water-beetles, just for all the 
world,” Jerry said chuckling. “ My, but 
we shall be clean.” 

And then as Maggie came by, dread- 
fully busy, in the middle of a wonderful 
flapping and dusting and cleaning, — 

“ How about a little sand-soap now, 
to clean up the trees ? I’d hate to have 
them look the way they do. They ain’t 
been regular scrubbed, well now I don’t 
know when,” and Maggie said she’d 
take the broom to him. 

“ Flowers, Flora,” the Little Sister 
said, coming with her hands full of 
goldenrod. “ And let’s get all the scarlet 
berries that we can, and put them all 
about the dining-room tent.” 

It did look very gay, and Mr. Charles 
brought a great sheaf of cat-o’-nine-tails 
and stood them in the corners. 

At last it was dusk and we went down 
to the beach. The men had lighted 
a great blazing bonfire. It was no use 
268 


THE HAPPY END 


straining your eyes out into the dark 
lake, for nothing came ; but we could not 
help it, and it seemed as if I could not 
wait or keep still. Mr. Charles and the 
Little Sister were watching from the 
rocks, where the stars shone in the water, 
and James was whittling beside the 
bonfire, but I could neither sit still nor 
stand in one place. I changed about from 
one rock to another, and fluttered about, 
and I am afraid fidgeted, which Maggie 
cannot bear. 

“ Do now, Miss Flora, child, be still,” 
she called to me. “ Dancing about won’t 
bring them any nearer, nor wearing your- 
self out like a flibbertigibbet,” and so I 
went over and sat down by Jerry. 

“ You do just as she says,” he said, 
with his hand on my shoulder. “ You 
just keep dignified, like Jeremiah. Why 
I knew a young gal once, and there, she 
grew all bald, she flew about so. It don’t 
pay to hurry. 


269 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


“ Old Je-re-miah, 

He don’t get excited. 

He always keeps ca’m, 

He don’t give a — 

Well, I do seem to be a person to 
talk to a young lady, to be sure,” Jerry 
said, scratching his head, but he went on 
with rhymes: 

“ Agitation doesn’t count, 

This here comes from wisdom’s fount ” — 

till James called: 

“ Flora ! Flora ! See, there is the 
light! ” 

And far in the darkness of the lake we 
saw the yellow star. 

So we were all in camp together at 
last. Billy was thin, and very pale and 
white, but I don’t think I ever saw any- 
thing look so satisfied as his face when 
he looked about the camp all lighted up 
270 


THE HAPPY END 


with firelight. He shared the tent with 
James, and Mr. Charles slept with Mr. 
Middleton, but the Little Sister and I 
still had our tent together. 

This was our happy summer in the 
woods ; and that night in my tent, 
looking out to watch the white north- 
ern lights (which meant that autumn 
was nearer, but of course we cannot stay 
here all our lives: as nice kind Miss 
Bennett said. Think of the cats!), I 
thought over again how wonderful it had 
been, what nobody could ever have 
believed, and how in a way it all came 
out of the hole in the cellar, of our Ragged 
Mine. I could not imagine now not 
having always known James, nor Mr. 
Charles, at all, nor now the Little Sister. 

It was a cool night, very clear and still. 
The dear lake lay quite quiet, full of 
stars, with only a little lapping against 
the rocks, and in the starlight, soft white 
fog-rivers began coming in between the 
271 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 


islands. I heard the high call of a 
plover overhead, but it was too cold to 
sit up watching long, so I crept into my 
soft fir bed, and fell asleep. 


272 


POSTSCRIPT 


James is coming to spend the winter 
with us. His father has to be in Alaska 
all winter, and he and Billy are drawing 
plans already for an ice-boat. 

Jerry is going to his sister’s, where he 
can see cows. He says there is nothing 
likes cows ; they keep the spirits calm and 
the mind untroubled. He is going to 
play the accordion and read “ Robinson 
Crusoe,” and he has promised faithfully 
to write to me, and I am going to write to 
him once every month. 

James and Billy and I are going to Mr. 
Charles’ for the whole of the holidays; 
but the best thing is that after their wed- 
ding in June, Mr. Charles and the Little 
Sister are coming straight up here to camp, 
273 


TWO CHILDREN IN THE WOODS 

and Jerry is coming up to cook for them. 
So they will have the woods and the dear 
lake again, together; and after a month 
we are all coming up, Maggie and Tom 
and all of us, to join them, so we shall 
have the same delightful dear time over 
again. 

44 Only better ! ” Mr. Charles said. 

And the Little Sister smiled and 
blushed, and said 
44 Yes.” 


THE ENB. 


274 


73 




O <> ' . . « ’ , 0 * 



", \ 

: -c/ :Xg||: v 

<y * < • o* V* <* 4 * • • ' 

SSfc 

* * 


A> C°*% 

- *b//' 

; v 

• 0 j a. *~CCAS* 

> .<P V ».,,• 

k » V • n ▼ *< 




. . « • ,o 


0 v> V 
»* A * 


A. '**• „* w ^ 0 ’•* ^ A' >t , 

ti_ c. *y^><yyi-> + o • _r^cv - + *P ty . * _ n/ui~ 

Jo • - n 

»'• <*r *»vo’ .o- ^ ^ 



«* ^ 


a. 


■■»■* .-v ^ j? s y 

°- ‘ ‘ V' .«J^ % 1 "l 



o, 

> Xv K 1 


4 V ^ ' t » # ' A U ^ • * *• * . 

v *2JrL/> <fy ^ 4% 

• ^ , 4 * ♦ 

z v/'v 

~v/\ ° WWW * - 

^ v^vv <* • 

~ - * 




o. *<r A * A 



I * 


* o 

* o 

*p 



A^ C^S ^ 

«feV* » ' ' 



» «^* A> » 

t w • 

* ^'V °o 

^ , ^, rT ^ ^ <l v ci* ♦ 

+r?.*' -Cr "o • * 

.V 



: ^ o* .“, 



oo 



# 1 


* > & »i‘°- v' - 

Xa* ** ^ *“ 

, V\ v • 


* °o „ 

* ay . " 

■ * »*} #• 



* <4 o 

. '■> -ay <£► < ^ ^ , 

> * ' <0 O 'o. *- A j> *-v — f T 

r 0 %,•!£* c> <A o oWa -» <$> n* 

* .MmSfi* ;^SSk-, *aoS :< 


v<\ 





<TV * • r\ " 4. -i _ 

V *rr,*v t ^ 

'♦ ^ 4? ^ v % .«••'. o 


4 3 , 


^ * 



vv 


0 0 * o „ 


• <4 • 

;* < 5 ? o 

,T * 




* ^ <£ •J&V 


• aV^ 

* A.V ^ • 


.o* t . ■■ ' • , *< 




° ^ & * 
° V O 

° ^ © 
4 <jT ^ ° 


s' < G v 




v>\ ° « 

*'T^ * * . 6 V O, "o', 7 ' 

*_ ,P* % 


4 «■ 


*/* “ A <*» 

&T- «v> .<** 4V/k». < 


r * 1 • o- 


><* 


./ # v % '•Jllir* ^*V »* .❖ y 'v v 

* s . - • , ^ ' * * ! ■ * * 6 t . K . , V '• ■ • ‘ * . . . . . % 





WERT 
BOOKBINDING 




